


Let the Truth Sting

by CaptainTulip



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Romance, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 02:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19075825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainTulip/pseuds/CaptainTulip
Summary: Post-Hogwarts, post-war. Snape is in Azkaban and when Remus, who was his only visitor, must leave the country, Harry grudgingly takes his place, with unexpected consequences.(Incomplete/abandoned. Final chapters lost in the ether.)





	1. Chapter 1

He is looking for something. At the moment, it is his keys, which are probably lurking under one of the pieces of decrepit furniture in the old motel room. But in general, he is looking for something, something he hasn't yet found or conquered. He doesn't know what he is looking for, aside from his keys, which makes it difficult for him to know where to start. When he was younger, he looked inside himself, because someone once told him that's where one finds strength, and that's what he needed, back then. He used to wake up, in the morning, usually, and stare at himself in the mirror and feel silly, because how can you find something that you need inside yourself, if it's  _you_  that's lacking? But evidently, he found his strength, if one is to believe the papers. Amazingly, in fact, and he was pleased, and everyone who wasn't dead or dying was pleased too. So it isn't as if he doesn't know how to find things, although as he continues his search of the underside of an old sofa, he wonders if perhaps his keys fell out of his pocket and he didn't notice, and his current scouring of the underside of the couch is futile.  
  
He pulls his hand out, and it's covered in an unidentifiable, although certainly rather repulsive, substance. He winces and wipes his hand on the carpet. He doesn't want to give up. The world is the way it is because he didn't give up, because they wouldn't let him give up, because no matter how much he  _wanted_  to and  _yearned_  to, that he got there in the end, and it seems an insult to give up now. But he sighs, and shakes his head, and murmurs, " _Accio_  my keys," and there is a jingle as the keys fly through the air from their hiding place under the stairs, and he doesn't want to read anything into that, doesn't  _need_  to read anything into that, so he slips the keys into his back pocket, and closes the door to his room softly behind him.  
  
He doesn't have a car, or a bike, or the will to split himself into a million tiny pieces and hope for the best, so he starts to walk. When he gets tired, he'll catch the Knight Bus, but for the moment he is content to walk through the peace and quiet of the streets. Oh, there are cars and shops and cafes and people and hustle and bustle, but it is calm in a way he doesn't know how to explain, quiet in a way he doesn't want to explain, because he's sick of things being defined and labeled and categorised and in the streets, he lets them be and they let him be, and that's quietness for the soul, he supposes.  
  
He's going to go and visit Remus, today. Because he hasn't seen him in what feels like forever, but is probably only a few months. He wonders if his friend will have more grey hair. If his hands will be shaking more than they were the last time he saw him, when he spilt tea all over the table and dropped the glass he gave him onto the old rug which lay in tatters on the dirty floor. He wonders if he'll walk into the lounge and find Remus slumped in the couch, crying into his old hands, which have far more scars than wrinkles, although these days, it's getting closer. He hopes not. He hopes Remus will welcome him in, smiling with that sad smile of his that everyone had always hoped would fade after the war, but never did. It was  _his_  smile, it was etched into his personality now, and he wouldn't be Remus without it.  
  
Tonks didn't last very long, although everyone except Tonks seemed to have expected that. She was a sunflower person, someone bright and larger than life and even though she seemed to think she wanted to be tied down, and liked being tied down, Remus couldn't live with the guilt, and Tonks found that living with someone who was guilty was even worse than being tied down was shaping up to be. So she left, even though she didn't want to because everyone was waiting for her to. She left Remus behind, alone, and an old tabby cat, which Remus named  _Lorna_ , which meant  _alone_. He didn't want to think about that much, because he felt like it was prying into something that Remus should have in a little locked, wooden box in his wardrobe, not prowling around the house asking for milk.  
  
Suddenly, he stumbles, because the ground beneath his feet becomes uneven, and he stares down to where his shoes are now covered in thick mud, and little droplets of rain are falling onto his shoulders. He looks up to see a little old house, and he winces when he realises that he's done it again. He doesn't mean to, and it's not even like it's particularly  _helpful_ , because if he wanted to apparate somewhere, he would, rest assured, and he doesn't need to just suddenly appear somewhere because his magic decides to give him a helping hand. Magic, he decided a long time ago, is a fickle friend. Fame is a fickle friend, too, just like Lockhart said, but Lockhart is in little pieces somewhere, so he doesn't want to think about that.  
  
He peers down at his watch, which snarkily proclaims, "Too-Early-To-Be-Barging-In-On-Tired-Friends". He sighs and feels like hissing back at it that he had no  _intention_  of arriving this early, but of course, then it would just tell him the wrong time later when it mattered, just to spite him, so he smiles grimly and stares at Remus's little house. It's a tiny, dingy little thing, but really, he's lucky he has a house at all. He feels his stomach roil at that thought, that Remus is "lucky" to be living in such a dump, so he promises himself he'll come over and help with cleaning, or whatever it is that clearly isn't being done at the moment.  
  
He's just about to turn around and go somewhere else until it's a suitable time to "barge in" when the little door opens, and little bits of peeling paint fall onto the ground before a scruffy boot steps on them. He grins as he catches sight of the man who's leaving the cottage, and when Remus finally sees him, he smiles a little, too.  
  
"Harry," he murmurs, and doesn't quite meet the young man's eyes. "What are you doing here?"  
  
Harry's grin fades slightly at Remus's less than ecstatic welcome. "Coming to see you, of course." He shoves his hands into his pockets to avoid having to face the unexpectedly uncomfortable feel of the meeting.  
  
"Well, it's lovely to see you, but I was just heading out." He plasters an apologetic smile onto his face as his eyes finally meet with Harry's, and they look brighter than usual.  
  
"Oh?" Harry says, disappointment and curiosity hitting him simultaneously. "Where to?"  
  
Remus jerks strangely, which Harry suddenly realises is an attempt at a casual shrug. "Just off to run some errands, you know."  
  
Harry watches as his hands tighten on a large bag that he's grasping. Harry thinks about not saying anything, about nodding and walking away, perhaps catching a movie and going out for lunch and coming back in time for tea and cake, but he decides he doesn't want to, so he asks, "What's in the bag?"  
  
Remus shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and slings the bag behind his legs. "Oh, you know," he says, looking somewhere over Harry's shoulder, "papers."  
  
Harry watches as Remus's eyes flick between nothingness behind him and he's suddenly suspicious, perhaps later than he should have been suspicious, but now that he's here, he's here. He glances at the bag meaningfully and he raises his eyebrows. "Awfully bulky looking papers," he remarks, and he doesn't like how he sounds, like Malfoy and McGonagall all rolled into one, but he doesn't see why Remus would have any reason to hide anything from him. He knows that everyone has secrets, and sometimes privacy is necessary, but everyone kept secrets from him when he was younger and that didn't help  _anyone_. Remus runs a hand through his grey hair, and the sleeve of his cardigan unravels a bit on his ear.  
  
"Well, what can I say?" Remus's face is bordering on grim now, and Harry wishes they are inside, or at least out of the rain. Harry is starting to feel suffocated by the situation. The gloomy weather and the gloomy house and the gloomy man standing in front of him with his gloomy bag full of things Harry isn't allowed to know about.   
  
Harry tries to grin. "You could say you're going to show me what's in the bag?"  
  
A look flickers between the two and suddenly they're both aware this isn't so much about the bag, anymore. Remus seems to deliberate for a moment, before he affects a light hearted shrug and opens the bag. "It's not that interesting," he murmurs, and allows Harry to peek in the bag, which has enough food packed for two people, a couple of books, soap and matches and other odds and ends.  
  
"Where are you going with that?" Harry asks, bafflement clear in his voice.  
  
Remus chews on the inside of his cheek, a habit that is a recent development, and looks like he's on the verge of walking away without a word, before he says, "I'm going to visit someone." It's clear in his voice that he's hoping Harry will press no more, that he'll leave Remus be with that, but Harry has no intention of letting Remus walk away and visit 'someone'.  
  
"Someone?  _Someone_? What kind of answer is that?" Harry tries to smile teasingly, and he's hoping it's working.  
  
"A perfectly adequate one, I thought," Remus replies, and the corner of his mouth twitches, and Harry feels like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders with that hint of a smile. He knows if he lets Remus go now, it will be better for them, but now Harry is just itching to  _know_.  
  
"A someone or a  _someone_  someone?" he asks, with a rude gesture at the last 'someone'.  
  
A number of emotions flicker across the older man's face; amusement, then shock, then a dawning of comprehension with a sad smile, before finally he settles on grim again, and the weight settles back on Harry's slender frame. Remus looks uncomfortable as he busies himself shutting the bag, and Harry frowns as he watches the werewolf. "There is nothing...amorous about our relationship, Harry." he says quietly, and there is a melancholy sound to the statement, which Harry interprets as regret.  
  
"But...you hope there will be, soon?" he asks, trying to catch Remus's eye, but Remus just shakes his head, peering at the ground.  
  
"No, of course not," he says, like the idea is completely ludicrous. "This is a purely a..." He breaks off, with a confused look on his face, obviously at a loss as to what to say. "We're not exactly friends." Remus decides upon, and then he smiles a little. "Well, more than we used to be."  
  
Harry blinks. "Well, why do you want to visit them?"   
  
Remus runs a hand through his greying hair, like Harry's father used to do, and replies, "Because he needs me to," and then looks like he's just shot someone, and would give anything in the world to snatch the words from the air and shove them back into his mouth again.  
  
"He." Harry affirms, and bites his lip. "He." he repeats, ponderingly, as faces filter through his mind. "He who must not be named, huh?" Harry says with a smile, then winces at his tactlessness. "He who you don't want me to know about. He who you're bringing things to. He who you're visiting. He who isn't your friend, but kind of is. He who is complicated..."  
  
Harry flicks through names and faces as Remus stands in front of him, looking for all the world like he'd rather be anywhere but there. Harry knows that someone like Hermione would have figured it out by now, but if someone like Hermione were here to figure it out then there most likely wouldn't be anything to figure out.  
  
Harry's mind has suddenly fallen on a face. And a name. It's as clear as day, perhaps clearer than the day is today, and it makes perfect sense but nothing has ever been more unbelievable in his life. "No..." Harry murmurs, looking Remus up and down as if the answer will be written on his patched trousers or worn out shoes, or perhaps written in the dirt smudging his cheek.  
  
"I really should be going," Remus says, almost anxiously, and moves to walk past him, but Harry's hand shoots out, firmer than he'd intended, to grab hold of Remus's arm.  
  
"Please tell me you're not going to see who I think you're going to see." Harry says, a plea and a demand. This time, he wants to be wrong. This time, he wants to be completely and utterly incorrect and crazy and paranoid and ridiculous. He doesn't want Remus's cheek to flutter in and out as his teeth gnaw into the soft flesh, or the guilty but defiant look in Remus's eyes, or the certainty that for once in his life he is  _right_.  
  
"That depends who you're thinking of," Remus replies, and Harry has never known Remus to be less like a Gryffindor in his life, so he decides he's going to have to be reckless enough for the both of them, and looks Remus straight in the eyes and says,  
  
"Snape." like it's a swear word.  
  
Remus doesn't reply.  
  
"Severus Snape," Harry persists, and at Remus's flinch he  _knows_  he's hit the nail on the head. "Dark, greasy, nasty, all around child-hating bastard," Remus continues to shrink in on himself as Harry starts to get into a rhythm, "Death Eater  _spy_ , convicted  _criminal_ ,  _murderer_  of the greatest fucking wizard of all  _time_ , and THE PERSON WITHOUT WHOM MY PARENTS WOULD STILL BE  _ALIVE_!"  
  
Harry's body is thrumming with fury as his hatred of the man starts to flow through his veins again. He is breathing deeply, and Remus is muttering like he's asking Merlin to kill him now.  
  
"And the person," Harry continues, his voice deathly cold, "without whom  _Sirius_  would still be alive."  
  
Both men freeze. The wind has gotten up. They stand there, staring at each other, drenched in rain and unhappy thoughts, their clothes flapping around for what feels like an eternity, before Remus speaks. Harry is glad he does, because otherwise Harry might have apologised for bringing up something so intended to  _hurt_  Remus, and they wouldn't have gotten anywhere.  
  
"Sirius," Remus says softly, his voice cracking on the word, "is exactly the reason I am going to visit Severus today, Harry." He is obviously trying to keep his voice level and calm, but it wavers and cracks and is barely audible over the wind and the rain. They stare at each other again, two madmen arguing in the rain, before Harry shakes his head.  
  
"Why?" he demands, so completely not understanding anything about the situation. Maybe he is dreaming? He wouldn't be so cold if he were dreaming. He's very cold now.  
  
"Because I didn't believe Sirius, and he was  _innocent_  and now he's  _dead_!" Remus says, his voice taking on a thick consistency. "I've got nothing, Harry,  _nothing_ , because I didn't believe he was innocent."  
  
"Severus Snape is  _not_  innocent." Harry spits. "He murdered Dumbledore in cold blood."  
  
"Just like Sirius murdered a street full of muggles in cold blood, Harry?" Remus retorts, and Harry sucks in a breath.  
  
"I  _saw_  Snape murder him with my own two eyes!" Harry's fists are clenched, his nails digging into his palms.  
  
"How can you be sure you know everything that happened?"  
  
Harry can't believe Remus. "How can you be so fucking blind?"  
  
"Now you listen here, Harry!" Remus bellows, and it's the first time Harry has heard his former teacher so angry. "I  _know_  what it's like to think the  _absolute_  worst of someone and then find out you were  _dead wrong_." Remus's voice is starting to tremble. "I've known Severus for a long,  _long_  time. I...I trust him, Harry. I  _trust_  him."  
  
Harry can hardly breathe. He is sorry and he is angry and he is miserable and his clothes are sticking to his cold, numbing skin.  
  
"Now, you may not  _approve_ , Harry," Remus says, like word tastes foul in his mouth, "but please try to understand, I  _have_  to do this." Remus shakes his head softly, looking down at his shaking hands. "I have to." he repeats, softly.  
  
And Harry realises that there is nothing he can say, nothing he can do, to change his mind. But even worse, there is nothing that  _Snape_  could say, nothing that  _Snape_ could do to change his mind either, because even if Snape slit open the throats of every person Remus ever cared about, he would go on believing he was innocent, because wouldn't he feel so very lonely if he was?  
  
Lonely.  _Lonely_.  
  
"If you need someone to talk to-"  
  
"It's not that, Harry."  
  
There is another long silence, and Harry thinks that no matter how many times he experiences them, he'll never get used to them.  
  
"So you're off to Azkaban, then." Harry says quietly, and Remus nods. "I'll come back later, shall I?"  
  
"If you like, Harry."  
  
Harry scuffs his shoe on the muddy ground. "Have fun."  
  
Remus doesn't reply.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
He forces the key into the lock, the little plastic number hanging limply from the keychain. He can feel fury pumping through his veins, and he slams the flimsy motel door behind him. The place is a dump; they usually aren't this bad, but he is too angry to care. He wasn't expecting this to happen, and he's come to dislike surprises almost as much as he dislikes Remus at the moment. He knows Remus has these flaws, and they're a part of what used to make him a likeable person.  
  
_Till he started visiting Snape in prison_ , Harry thinks angrily, and hurls the cheap keys at the wall.  
  
He had walked from Remus's, and with every step his blood had boiled hotter, his fists had clenched harder, his teeth had ground stronger. He likes to think that he is a calm person, has been since the fury and turmoil of the war, but his temper is flared up as if he'd never felt the dull ache of grief and pain for years.  
  
The little room is dull and impersonal, with uncomfortable looking chairs and an insignificant looking fridge. He doesn't like it at all; it doesn't make him feel relaxed or safe, like it usually does, so he pulls off his clothes and stalks to the shower.  
  
The droplets of water are cold at first, and he gnaws his teeth and tenses until the water turns boiling hot, whereupon he leaps out and swears heatedly at the inanimate showerhead for thirty seconds, and steps cautiously back under the spray. He takes a deep breath and tries to relax, rubbing soap gently over his body, feeling sparks of interest in his groin.  
  
_Bastard should have been put down_ , Harry thinks viciously, rubbing a taut nipple with calloused fingers, and gasping slightly, taking in a lungful of steam.  _Bet Snape loves it when Remus visits, loves the feel of deceit and power over an innocent man_. An image of Snape, smirking to himself behind bars as Remus prostrates himself on the ground, begging for Snape's forgiveness flashes into Harry's mind, and he growls angrily, his muscles tensing as he wraps a hand around his hardening cock absentmindedly.  
  
_Even going near Snape is a betrayal of the memory of Sirius and Albus_. Harry tries not to think of Albus's kindly face or Sirius's playful grin, because that coupled with Snape's greasy smirk is more pain and anger than he can deal with.  _Murdering bastard_ , Harry thinks. Every person that he has ever been close to has died because of Snape, save for one, who he's converted to his side. Harry thinks of Remus and Snape, standing side by side, smirking at him, and he shakes his head, trying not to even imagine the amount of betrayal on Remus's behalf. Harry pumps his rock hard cock into his fist, moaning incoherently. He slides his other hand down from the slippery tile to stroke his balls, shivering with pleasure.  
  
_It's not even as if he'd be nice to be around_! Harry thinks angrily, as thoughts of Snape snarling and sniping and smirking and snarking and spitting fly through his mind. His fingers slip down from his balls to rub at his entrance, and he spreads his legs wider as the hot water pounds down on his hot body, shuddering as he tightens his stroking hand, flicking his thumb over the tip with a guttural groan.  
  
_They're not even friends! He got him fired from Hogwarts, they spent all their time fighting with each other, they *hate* each other_! Harry remembers Snape's contemptuous look when Remus came upon them in the corridor, and his tactless remarks about the moon, and the way he insisted on referring to him by his last name, even when Remus called him  _Severus_  every time.  
  
_Severus, please_ , Harry recalls Remus begging in the Shrieking Shack, and his strokes start to get urgent as he pumps two fingers in and out of his tight hole.  
  
_Severus, please_ , Harry remembers Dumbledore uttering the same two words, right before Snape murdered him, his face contorted with disgust. Harry's hips start thrusting uncontrollably, and with a strangled cry he comes, biting his lip as his face contorts with pleasure, his heart racing and his cock pumping out seed and his mind scrambled with images of his former Professor.  
  
He gasps under the spray, the remainder of his come swirling down the drain, and he slowly slides his fingers out of himself. He feels dirty, even though he's being blasted with water, and with a startling shock he realises he just touched himself while thinking of Snape.  
  
_NO_! he thinks urgently. They were two different activities. He'd learnt to multi-task the hard way, and it has stayed with him. That's all. He was thinking with his brain exclusively. And he also happened to be pleasuring his body, exclusively. Years of packed in dormitories where nights are spent within a five metre radius of his peers  _forced_  him to get used to touching himself in the relative privacy of the shower.  
  
He feels disgusted that he's trying to justify it to himself, and with a frown he turns off the shower, indifferent that he hasn't washed his hair or body properly. He wraps a towel around his lower half, which is pink and rough and a little too small (the towel, that is), and stepping over his rumpled clothing he collapses on the uncomfortable couch in front of the television. He doesn't turn it on, he just sits there for a while, letting thoughts slowly enter his brain and seep out again. He doesn't need to hold on to a thought, which is a feeling he cherishes. He can learn something and just let it slip away, and as he settles back onto the couch he lets as many thoughts as he can slide away. He'll have to get up soon, he knows, because he has to go and visit Remus again, like he said he would. Remus who might still be at Azkaban, amidst the murderers and criminals and Dementors, sitting in a dank, dark cell with Severus Snape, having what looked like ham and gherkin sandwiches, with tea out of a thermos. Remus who is the only Marauder left, the only known werewolf in Britain left, and Harry's only relative, honourary, at least.  
  
He yawns. Soon, but not yet.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
When he arrives, he is ushered in through the door and down into the most comfortable chair, and Remus offers him tea with a smile. The weather is still terrible, Harry is still angry, and Remus is still the same as he ever was.  
  
"Thanks," he replies quietly, and sips at the watery liquid. He likes tea, sometimes, but then sometimes he doesn't, and he isn't sure which kind of a time this one is. He watches Remus, watches him for signs of something different, of quirks that didn't used to be there, or a change, and there isn't anything except for the fact that he seems more cheerful than usual, which is something Harry was expecting, but doesn't like at all.  
  
The rain batters the windows of the small cottage, and they sit there in silence, smiling inanely at each other. It's a stupid situation, and Harry wishes that Remus would bring up a suitably mundane topic so they can begin to talk, and Harry can work it round to how Remus spent his afternoon.  
  
But he doesn't. He sits there, knitting, which is ridiculous with the state that his hands are in, but he's surprisingly good, and he says it helps him focus and helps his hands, too, but Harry doesn't think that's possible, but he's never said so. Remus makes silly woolen hats, and socks and scarfs and underpants once, too, for a laugh. They were funny until Harry got a rash, and had to rub cream on himself every day for two weeks.  
  
So Harry gazes around the room, his eyes lingering on the few scattered photographs and unopened boxes. He looks at the walls and at the ceiling and then at the floor, and then he flicks his gaze back at Remus, who is still knitting fastidiously. He runs his eyes along the beams and looks out the window and around the window, and looks back at Remus again. He glances down at his cup of tea in his hand, which is still quite hot, and at his shoes and the floor again, trailing his eyes along the rug to a pair of shoes, who belong to Remus, who he looks at once more.  
  
"Severus is the same as he ever was." Remus murmurs quietly with a smile, obviously aware of Harry's thoughts.  
  
"Is he?" Harry replies. It's a stupid reply, but he can't think of anything else to say that won't turn into another argument, so he's stalling, really.  
  
"Well," Remus muses, "A bit more subdued, I suppose."  
  
Harry bites his lip. He grinds his teeth, and takes a large gulp of his tea, which scorches the back of his throat, which he likes. "So what do you talk about, then? The weather? Quidditch? What?"  
  
Remus pauses, and sighs. "Not much, really." It is said like a confession. "He doesn't like talking much."  
  
Harry imagines Snape's rich, deep voice, parched from thirst, rasping out in the prison cell. How he'd sit there in the late hours of the night, unable to sleep, trying to force it to boom and intimidate like it used to, and nothing more than a whisper forcing itself out through those thin, tight little lips. Like a lion, practising its roar, which is a comparison Harry is certain Snape would not appreciate.  
  
"Huh. Funny that." He murmurs, and clears his throat. "Guilty conscience, maybe?"  
  
Remus doesn't reply for a moment, which is starting to become a habit for the older man. It's as if he's counting to ten silently in his head, and perhaps he is. Less obvious than clenching his fists, and less painful than biting his cheek. He just continues knitting, and eventually shakes his head. "Perhaps we ought to change the subject, Harry."  
  
Harry wants to lean back in his chair and hum noncommitally like a psychiatrist, analysing Remus's discomfort. He is far from indifferent, however, so he says, "You brought it up," instead. He is aware of how petulant he sounds, but he can't help it. He wants to throw the teacup to the ground and stamp on it and fling the shards at Remus's sad old face, but he also wants to find Severus Snape and rip his heart from his chest and squeeze it to a pulp in his bare hands for daring to hurt the man.  
  
"Perhaps I shouldn't have." Remus replies, and it's like many a time before, where Harry isn't sure whether they're having an argument or not, because they're always so subtle with Remus that it's hard to tell. "Perhaps we should talk about something more lighthearted, hmm?" Remus lifts his head to smile at Harry, but Harry isn't in the mood, and looks away.  
  
"Like what?" He can't think of anything he wants to talk to Remus about at the moment, save for Snape, but he dislikes talking about him, too.  
  
Remus chews the inside of his cheek. "I don't know. Do you have a," Remus pauses, "girlfriend?" he says tentatively, and it's so obviously not a spur of the moment question that Harry nearly laughs in his face. He can still feel his cheeks grow hot, despite his amusement, and he knows Remus will draw unwanted implications from the blush, and he hates it. "No." he mutters, and Remus smiles comfortingly.  
  
"Ah well," he says, "Plenty of time."  
  
Images flash through Harry's mind, of writhing bodies and hard chests and muscled legs and stubbled cheeks and throbbing cocks and rounded arses, and everything else he wishes he'd experienced. All he has under his belt (save for a nice pair of casual jeans) is a few tame kisses with a red-headed female, far from anything his mind can produce when set to it, late at night, with the curtains closed and his pulse running high.  
  
"Yeah," he agrees unsteadily, and Remus frowns suddenly.  
  
"Who was your last?" he asks, and Harry busies himself taking a sip of his tea.  
  
"My last what?"   
  
He's feigning ignorance, which is fun even if it is futile.  
  
"Your last girlfriend. I can't remember..." Remus trails off, studying Harry.  
  
Harry shifts in his seat, though it is not an uncomfortable piece of furniture, and shrugs a little. "Well, I mean...I haven't really...you know. Had time."  
  
Remus looks both amused and perplexed by this, and Harry damns himself thrice for saying something so entirely stupid. Not many men his age are too busy to have sex. And, well, he  _isn't_ , and he thinks that maybe Remus knows this, by the look on his face. He supposes everybody knows this, but he'd prefer confusion than outright disgust.  _Erm, it's just, I like **boys**_. Though sometimes he wonders if perhaps it would go down better with Remus than many others of the community, although he's never voiced his thoughts aloud.  
  
"Ah," Remus says, softly. He continues knitting, in and around and back and forth as the soft  _click_  of needles echoes through the room. "How did things go with...with Ginny?"  
  
Harry starts, then frowns, then smiles slightly. "Haven't seen her since sixth year." Which is an odd thought, really. He supposes he should ask after her, but he doesn't really want to. Remus mightn't know, anyway, which would be uncomfortable, to say the least.  
  
"So you haven't kept in touch?"  
  
Harry chews his lip. "Not as such."  
  
Remus nods slowly to himself, then sucks in a breath, and exhales in slowly in a long suffering sigh. "Harry," he says, and Harry can tell he's about to receive a lecture by the way he says it, "You don't want to end up like me."  
  
Harry smiles. A veteran war hero, loved and respected by all? "Like you how?"  
  
Remus grimaces. "Old and alone." He looks up at Harry with a sad smile, which Harry knows has every right to be there. "You're not that kind of person."  
  
"Maybe I am." Harry replies. "In fact I  _know_  I am." When Remus shakes his head softly, Harry demands, "Well how come you never got married?"  
  
"I am not that kind of person," Remus says delicately.  
  
"Well, I'm the same as you then, aren't I?"  
  
Remus smiles a little, and it's a secret sort of smile, a smile that says Remus knows things that Harry doesn't. Happy things and sad things and a world of things that Harry doesn't know about. "No, I don't think you are."  
  
"Yeah, I think I am."  
  
Remus chuckles. "How long were you with Ginny for?"   
  
And if Harry hadn't understood the situation, he might have mistaken that for a change of topic, but it isn't. It isn't and Harry sees that and he understands, and he wants Remus to understand as much as he understands. "How long were you with Tonks for?" he replies in the same tone, and Remus looks up at that, and Harry thinks that perhaps his thoughts have finally had a chance to be proved right.  
  
Remus studies Harry's face intently. He chews his lip, then his mouth falls open. "Harry," he begins, but then appears to change his mind, and frowns. "What exactly do you mean?"  
  
Harry shrugs. "I don't know." he says. He supposes he doesn't really. He  _thinks_  he does, but assuming never got anybody anywhere. He wonders if maybe he should have answered Remus the way he did, and maybe he's just getting excited, and misread the conversation, and Remus doesn't mean what he thinks he means, and Harry certainly doesn't mean what fell out of his mouth. "Maybe I should go." He finally says, slowly.  
  
Remus hesitates. "You only just arrived."  
  
Harry nods. "I know."  
  
A clock ticks faintly in the background, and Harry wishes conversation flowed like it used to when he was younger, when a thought appeared into your head and you voiced it, and everyone else around you did too, and there were jokes and laughter and banter and you could say what you wanted because nothing really mattered, even if it  _did_  matter, eventually, to someone. He felt uncomfortable, now, and talk was stilted.  
  
"Where are you going to go?" Remus asks softly.  
  
Harry bites his lip. "A motel, like usual."  
  
Remus sighs deeply. "I don't understand why you won't get yourself a permanent place, Harry. It just doesn't make any sense, financially or...or emotionally, or...physically, or any other way."  
  
Harry gives a wry smile. "Life doesn't make much sense, Remus." He says this like an adult would, with an exaggerated air of superiority, a cynical tinge with a hint of mocking. He gives a melodramatic sigh, too, although he isn't quite joking.  
  
Remus looks faintly amused. "Well, life isn't fair and can sometimes be cruel, but we don't always have to follow its example." He says, with a pointed look at Harry.  
  
"Suppose not." Harry says flippantly, and traces his tongue along his teeth. "Still don't want a place of my own yet."  
  
"Your stuff is still in storage, then?"  
  
Harry nods.  
  
"You know you're always welcome here, Harry."  
  
Harry tries not to snort. "That'd be kind of weird?" It comes out as a question, lessening the effect, in a way. That wasn't a particularly tactful thing to say, in retrospect.  
  
Remus shrugs his shoulders. "It might be nice." he murmurs, which makes Harry feel about two feet tall. "I suppose a grown man like yourself needs his space."  
  
Harry isn't sure how to respond, so he busies himself sipping his tea, trying not to think of his habitually cramped living conditions.  
  
"Have you heard about Lucius Malfoy?" Remus asks mildly, and Harry frowns at the mention of the man, deceased over a decade ago.   
  
"What about him?"  
  
Remus raises an eyebrow. "A ghost, apparently." He reminds Harry of an old gossip, and Harry gasps appropriately, though he is, in fact, quite shocked, especially after all these long, long years, and especially after becoming quite well acquainted with Malfoy and his ways and views.  
  
"Where's he haunting?" Harry has stopped feeling odd using the word.  
  
"They say he's at Hogwarts, most of the time. They have to keep escorting the children around, because he terrifies them to tears." Harry can imagine sitting in History of Magic and looking up to see the floating specter of the former Death Eater hissing out of his text book.  
  
He shakes his head. "Why don't they do something about it?"  
  
"Not much you can do about a ghost. They're hard to keep under control, if you can remember Peeves?"  
  
Harry smiles. "Yeah."  _Oh Potter, you rotter, oh what have you done? You're killing off students, you think it's good fun..._  
  
Remus frowns. "He goes around muttering Dark Curses and ways of killing people and intimate details of all the crimes he's committed. Murmuring stories of rape into first year's ears, things like that. He's covered in blood, Minerva was telling me, and removable body parts. Eyes and his scalp and fingers and whatnot."  
  
"What?" Harry is shocked, and confused. "He was killed with a killing curse!"  
  
Remus shrugs, and looks vaguely impressed as well as disgusted. "He must have cooked up some scheme with...with Him beforehand."  
  
Harry clucks his tongue. "What's Malfoy think? I mean, you know, Draco."  
  
"He refuses to go near him."  
  
Harry laughs weakly. "Can't say I blame him."  
  
Remus agrees. "It's not a good environment for the students to be learning."  
  
"Neither is a war," Harry softly reminds Remus.  
  
"Yes," Remus nods, "but sometimes knowing thy enemy as intimately as that can have unwanted repercussions that you were lucky to stay away from until quite late."  
  
"You mean," Harry says, standing up, "until I experienced them firsthand."  
  
Remus looks startled, and drops his knitting. He grips the arms of his chair and forces himself up. "Are you going?" he asks, and looks genuinely upset. Harry feels guilty, for a moment, but brushes it off, his fingers flicking at his jersey.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
He places his cup down at the sink, once he walks over, and smiles at Remus, who hastily invites him to dinner. "Say, this time next week?"  
  
Harry accepts, politely, and smiles at Remus again, and feels sorry for him, for the hundredth time in as many seconds. Remus was the type of person who should have been surrounded by people and love and affection and everything that good people  _deserve_ , because was such a good person. But then, Harry supposes, that the "kind of person Remus was", inverted commas entirely necessary, he wasn't likely to be surrounded by children.  
  
"I'll see you later," Harry murmurs, when he reaches the door, and Remus looks at him oddly, looking furtive, and Harry realises he's trying to decide whether to hug him or not. Harry laughs, because he can't help it, and he steps forward and envelops Remus in a hug, in the manliest possible way, and when he leaves, Remus is smiling. It's a sad smile, that's surrounded by lines of sad stories and betrayal and unhappiness, and Harry notices that his eyes are more red than usual, and perhaps a bit puffier than one would hope, but it's ok.  
  
He'll be back Saturday.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Harry doesn't know how he entertains himself for a whole week. Sometimes, he ponders picking up a hobby. Something romantic, maybe, like painting or writing or stylising charms. Maybe, he thinks, he'll start learning the piano, and be able to play like a madman, his hair a mess (well, he's got that part sorted), his eyes rolling back in his head as the notes start to pound through his blood stream and his fingers fly across the keys, and he's swept up in the beauty of the sound and everyone stares at him agape as....  
  
And that's when he frowns, because everyone stares at him agape  _anyway_ , and he's not even a stone deaf musical genius.  
  
He's just Harry Potter, a  _murderer_ , so he gets angry, and drinks instead.  
  
But he doesn't drink  _that much_. Yet hours are short, and leap past him in fits of giggles and laughter and morbid screams, and suddenly it's night, and he has to turn on all the lights because he realises he's sitting in darkness, and then he wonders why the lights are on in the middle of the day, so he leaps up to turn them on only to find he can't see anything, because it's night again.  
  
He guesses, anyway, that'd he'd have to have a house to have a hobby, or at least a permanent place to stay, so that his piano could sit in the corner, all it's teeth bared, and his paintings could adorn the cracks and holes of his life and walls, but at the present time his nomadacy suits him. Besides, if he found a place to stay he'd have no use for his suitcase that carries everything around, and at the moment his suitcase is the most important thing in his life, a tie to a life already lived. It has  _Sirius Black_ inscribed inside, and was the very vessel used to cart his godfather's most precious belongings to the house that belonged to the father Harry has never known. Harry's feels like it's a family heirloom, in a way, more important than his father's golden watch or his mother's pearls, and he knows one day he'll have to give it up.  
  
But not today.  
  
Or the next, or the next, or the next, it always seems to go. And it's bloody hard work trying to explain to people the reason he doesn't settle down and live a normal life is because of a suitcase, so he just stares at them blankly and tries to look petulant when they ask, and so far it's worked as well as he expected it would.  
  
He does have a job, but since the time he slept in and missed his shift, and no one called or said anything to him about it when he appeared the next day, he doesn't attend it as religiously as the roster would suggest. He does mean to, sometimes, and he's always  _intending_  to go, but then he burns his coffee, and, well, he can't have burnt coffee, so he has to make another cup, and he may as well read something while he's drinking it, and then suddenly it's three hours later, and no one really cares anyway.  
  
Because, really, he's  _Harry Potter_.  
  
He flies his broom sometimes, but only when he can be bothered visiting his vault, and usually he can only do it in secret, low to the ground, which really defies the point of having a top of the line high-altitude broomstick. There's been reports that his Phoenix 3000 can even reach into space, but Harry has yet to try. He wouldn't like to be the one that proves the reports wrong.  
  
It's nearly six o clock, and he has dressed nicely for the occasion, though it's not much of one. He's combed his hair, fat lot of good that did, and he's wearing nicely pressed, clean clothes. Dark trousers and a light shirt. He wasn't looking forward to dinner with Remus earlier in the week, but he feels like since it looks like the small tidbit of socialising is going to be the highlight of his week, then he better make the most of it.  
  
He eyes himself in the mirror, placed conveniently by the back door to avoid any serious fashion faux pas on exit. For once, he's a little sad that it's a muggle mirror, because he's sure it'd have something complimentary to say. He looks nice, he decides, and he smiles on his way out. He hasn't really talked to anyone all week. He went in to work for a bit, and he read a bit, and he cooked a lot. He likes cooking, and he's getting better than he used to be, which was black on the outside and raw on the inside. Sometimes, he thinks about buying some of his own cooking implements and carrying them around with him, because he never knows what kind of pots and pans there'll be at the next place he stays. He thinks, though, that's he's not  _quite_  yet that eccentric, so he's putting it off. He'd like to cook for someone, one time, but he can't imagine that ever happening with the lifestyle he leads. He'd like to have someone waiting patiently at a table, with a white table cloth and floral china and engraved silver, and watch as they smile as he presents the food he's cooked, and their little moans of pleasure as they finally taste it. They'd compliment him at the end of the meal, and he'd blush and smile, and then he'd present dessert...  
  
Well. That's always when it stops in his head, because what does one present for dessert? He wonders if maybe he'd make a cake, or perhaps ice cream, or some european dish like baklava, or if maybe his cooking was enough and it would just be chocolates...  
  
He picks up a bottle of wine on the way. Well, at least he intended to, until he realised he didn't know what Remus was going to be making, if he was in fact cooking, so he ended up with two, one red and one white, just in case. He could always take one home if they didn't drink it.  
  
Harry arrives at Remus's door, and it's not a bad evening all things considered, and he transfers the wine to one hand and knocks, waiting patiently on the doorstep.  
  
The door flings open, and Remus's face appears, flushed and concerned and anxious. His hair is frazzled, and his eyes are wide and skipping, and his mouth is opening and closing. He's clearly not changed since whatever he's been making, as there are stains all over his old clothing, and Harry feels suddenly and completely overdressed and uncomfortable.  
  
"Harry," Remus says, as if he is surprised, and stands aside. Harry's smile frowns a little, and he steps inside.  
  
"I brought some wine," he says, attempting to sound cheerful, and Remus takes the bottles.  
  
"It looks lovely." he says, distractedly, and hurries inside to place it on the bench.  
  
"Is something the matter?" Harry calls, and Remus hurries back in to usher Harry onto the couch. He runs a hand distractedly through his hair, and looks side to side, and then his gaze falls upon Harry as if he has just seen him.   
  
"I'm terribly sorry, Harry, it's just something terribly important has just..."  
  
Harry shifts on the couch. "I can go, if you-"  
  
"No, no, no! Nothing to interrupt the evening, goodness me, no, it's just..."  
  
"You look a bit flushed." Harry states, and he hopes that's a clear intimation that he wants Remus to tell him what the matter is.  
  
"Well, yes." Remus breathes. "Wine?"  
  
"Er, yeah, wine would be good, yeah."  
  
"White?"  
  
"Yeah, sure, white's great."  
  
Remus turns to hurry into the kitchen. "Bloody hell, sit  _down_ , Remus. I can do that."  
  
Remus spins around, and smiles faintly. "If you could..."  
  
Harry nods vehemently, and Remus walks over and sinks down into the couch next to Harry, who summons the bottle and two glasses from Remus's cupboard. One looks a bit chipped, and he veers that one towards himself. Remus watches him as if in a daze, and when Harry finally presents him with a glass he looks a bit shocked.  
  
"Oh, thank you, Harry." he mutters. "Cheers."  
  
"Cheers," Harry says, raising his glass with a small smile, and taking a modest sip, he places the glass on the coffee table and looks a Remus expectantly. "Well?"  
  
Remus looks up at him, then down at his glass which he shakily places back on the table, then up at him again. "Oh, it's nothing," he breathes, and Harry's eyes widen.  
  
"Well, it's obviously  _not_. What's wrong?"  
  
Remus sighs, once again, and runs his hand through his hair, once again, and then allows himself a bit of a smile. "You know that...that thing I was working on. About lycanthropy, and whatnot."  
  
Harry nods. "Yeah?"  
  
"Well...they want me to give a talk about it. They like it, and they want to publish it, and they've asked me to go to a conference in America."  
  
Harry's mouth falls open, and then he grins. "You're kidding! That's great, Remus!"  
  
Remus nods and smiles weakly, but there's still a frown lingering at the corners of his mouth and Harry pats him on the back. "What's wrong with that?" he asks, concerned.  
  
"Well...with the way everything's set up, the meetings and the conference and dinners and portkeying, I'll be away for a couple of months."  
  
He sounds like he's just announced to Harry that someone close to him has died. Of course, that's happened to Harry many times before, so the effect on him wouldn't be as great as that of somebody else, but the situation certainly does not merit such a grave tone.  
  
"Months? Really?" Harry shrugs his shoulders, and smiles reassuringly. "I'll miss you, Remus, but I think you should go."  
  
"Yes, but it's  _tomorrow_."  
  
"Tomorrow? That's short notice, isn't it?"  
  
Remus smiles grimly. "Yes, great advocate for werewolf rights." His eyes flick towards the corner of the room, where his cat is frolicking inside a large leather bag, and Harry laughs.   
  
"I can feed Lorna for you, if that's what you're worried about."  
  
Remus fakes a relieved smile. "Could you? That'd be great, Harry."  
  
Harry plays with the corner of his shirt, scrutinising Remus intensely. "That's not what you were worried about." He doesn't phrase it as a question, so Remus isn't prompted to lie. He picks up his wine between his fingers, carefully. "What're you worried about?"  
  
"Oh," Remus says breathily, "Nothing of importance."  
  
Harry bites his lip, and frowns.  
  
"Well," Remus adds, "not to you, leastways."  
  
Harry keeps frowning into his drink.  
  
There is a long pause, as Harry waits for and Remus wonders how to phrase the inevitable.  
  
"I don't think he'll survive my trip." He says at long last, and Harry sighs.  
  
"Snape." He affirms, and Remus nods. Harry laughs, an utterly humourless sound that is sucked into the night. "So you're sacrificing your happiness for him? Your life for his, as it were?"  
  
"Well, I can't just let him  _die_."  
  
Remus's last word reverberates around the room, and Harry only just manages to stop himself from spitting,  _Why not_?  
  
"There's no one else who'd be even willing to consider taking him food and water, let alone talk to him for a while. You know, I can't even be sure I can go."   
  
He traces a finger around his mouth, and looks slowly up into Harry's eyes. He doesn't want to ask, Harry knows, but he's doing it anyway, with his raised eyebrows and his quirked lips and his pleading stare, and guilt is filling up the room like a toxic gas, choking Harry into surrender.  
  
"You want me to do it," he says softly, and Remus grimaces.  
  
"No." he says, and lets himself smile a little. "Not really."  
  
Harry isn't sure if it's reverse psychology, or what, but it's working. "I  _will_  do it. If you want me to."  
  
He'd do it for Remus, not for some misplaced sympathy for a decaying old bastard. He churns it over in his head, and slowly the idea gains more and more merit. Why should Snape continue to affect Remus's life, his chances, his happiness, even when he's rotting away in jail somewhere? He could give Snape a piece of his mind, too. Snape wouldn't have anywhere to run, or hide. Nothing to say back to him. He couldn't defend himself, and there would be no Dark Lord or Death Eater cronies or even deluded senior teachers to stand up for him. He couldn't deduct points for what Harry had to say, or give him detention. He couldn't intimidate Harry by towering over him, or threatening him. There would be nothing,  _nothing_ , between them, except what Harry had to say to his loathed teacher.   
  
"Yeah," Harry nods, "I'll do it." He says it casually, and he feels his fingers twitter a bit in anticipation. He can't wait to see Remus look relieved and give him the instructions and hand over his trust. He can't wait for everything to be alright between them again, and have an enjoyable evening, Remus looking forward to a trip to the U.S. and Harry looking forward to a trip down memory lane. He can't wait to see the look on Snape's face when he walks in there instead of Remus.  
  
_Oh, he'll be crapping his pants_ , Harry thinks gleefully, and smiles at Remus in a banal way.  
  
Remus raises an eyebrow and laughs softly. "I don't think that's such a good idea, Harry."  
  
Harry shrugs and takes a sip, eyeing Remus over the rim of his glass. "Why not?"  
  
"I may be getting older," Remus leans back into the couch, "but I'm not yet completely senile.  _You_ , and Snape? I think, perhaps, he'd rather die."  
  
"Have you asked him that?" Harry murmurs, giving Remus a pointed look. He picks up the wine bottle and pours himself another glass, watching Remus's skewed face through the golden liquid.  
  
Remus shifts. "Obviously, you're aware that-" Remus begins delicately.  
  
"It's the perfect solution?"  
  
Remus's face takes on a look of frustration. "How can I be sure he won't provoke you until the point where you refuse to continue visiting him, and he's nothing but a corpse when I return?"  
  
Harry folds his strong hands in his lap. "Because I'm an adult now, Remus." He crosses his muscled legs and lifts an eyebrow somewhat reminiscent of McGonagall. "And I want to learn to...see him as you see him." Which is a complete and utter lie, of course, because Harry has no illusions about Snape, he knows he is an utter bastard, a living, breathing glob of evil, with bitterness oozing from every pore.  
  
Surprisingly, Remus blushes. He busies himself finishing the last of his glass, and pours himself another, letting his hair hide his face momentarily. "I think perhaps that I should find someone else."  
  
He says it like there is a line of friends and admirers queuing at his door. "Why? I'm perfect for the job."  
  
Remus looks at Harry with an expression of bemusement and amusement, and says, "You're a very good actor, Harry. You should have joined the theater-"  
  
"Come on, Remus." Remus contemplates Harry silently.   
  
Harry is pushing for this. He doesn't know why, but he is.  
  
"It'll take a load off your shoulders."   
  
Silence.  
  
"I'm not going to torture him. I'd be the same as him, then, wouldn't I?"  
  
No reply.  
  
"What could I possibly do?"  
  
Hesitation.  
  
"Harry..."  
  
"Remus."  
  
"I really don't think-"  
  
"Don't you trust me?"  
  
"Well..."  
  
"Remus!"  
  
Harry is being a bully. He can feel it thrumming through his veins like lightening.  
  
"It's not like it's that much of a pain. It wouldn't be that difficult."  
  
Just about there.  
  
"I'm not doing it for  _him_ ," Harry says, pulling out his trump card, "I'm doing it for  _you_."  
  
Remus heaves a great sigh.  
  
"All right, Harry," he breathes, tiredly, "You can do it."  
  
"Thank you," Harry says, primly, and quickly changes the topic.  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Harry wakes to the sound of his own voice lilting through his head. He pulls the sheets away from him, his toes frozen cold from being out in the open all night, and stalks into the kitchen, the bed creaking loudly as he leaves it. He has none of the symptoms that short stories and long novels describe, like "a throbbing headache so bad it felt like there was a madman with an axe hacking apart his brain", or "a taste in his mouth like something had crawled in there and died", and he certainly doesn't feel "waves of nausea crashing through him like the stormy sea on a winter's day". All he can feel are memories. Of the night before, mostly, and of all the stupid things he said. Alcohol, unlike his bespectacled eyes, was the window to Harry's soul.  
  
 _Do you ever feel like everything is nothing, Remus? Like nothing matters, like there isn't any more than this, like you don't want anything or love anything or feel anything..._  
  
Harry snorts as he remembers the look on Remus's face, and slowly takes a glass down from the cabinet and fills it with water.  
  
 _What are you talking about, Harry_?  
  
Though Harry thinks that Remus knew exactly what he meant. Remus is so jaded, these days, because he'd felt love and he'd felt fear and loss and hate and grief and elation and redemption and prejudice and everything that someone could possibly feel a million times over, and a few times again just in case. He is like a sheet, been put through the wash so many times, covered in stains and had the stains ripped out of him, and sewn up and stitched together and sometimes Harry wonders if the sheet he knows now is the same one that was bought over forty years ago. He's knows it isn't, really, and he wonders how much it has changed.  
  
 _I don't know. Like everything is futile._  
  
Harry remembers how Remus had replied.  
  
 _If you don't have hope, there is none_ , he had proclaimed.  
  
Harry remembers his drink-addled brain trying to make sense of the comment.  _I think I killed my hope, Remus._  He had said slowly.  
  
"Oh, I  _didn't_ ," Harry says now, staring at himself in the chipped mirror. He clutches his face and mentally starts to plan his apology conversation. He shoudn't  _ever_  be allowed alcohol if it gets him into such a state where sense and sensibility all just turn into one big mass of melodrama and emotions and misguided thoughts. He feels sorry for Remus, now, and he chuckles morosely at what his father's friend must have thought of him.  
  
 _Hope is what gets us through. Hope is why we're alive._  Remus had insisted.  
  
 _Well, I don't have any hope, Remus, so am I dead?_  He remembers chuckling, and feeling quite clever when he had said,  _I hope I am._  
  
"Shut  _up_ ," he moans to himself now, trying to force the conversation out of his head. He has something to  _do_ , today, he has a  _responsibility_ , he has somewhere to go, someone to see, someone whom it would be particularly unhelpful to have his drunken ramblings cavorting through his head in front of. He needs to be thinking clearly, and straight. Definitely straight.  
  
"Belt up, Potter," he murmurs, and gets changed into his clothes.  
  
He's going to Azkaban today.  
  
It's such an odd thought that he voices it aloud, and he wishes it were a cave instead of just a dingy room, so that he could hear the statement echoing back towards him.  _I'm going to Azkaban today_. Though of course, he would have to correct the echo, just to make sure it hadn't got the wrong idea, because really, he  _should_  be saying "I'm  _visiting_  Azkaban today", because he's not 'going', per se. Well, he is, but he doesn't want the echo to think he's done anything wrong. Other than murder, of course, because he's done that a lot. More times than all of the people in Azkaban put together, probably, which makes him pause. More than pause, more like halt anything that resembles a life, save for a strand by the name of Remus Lupin. But damned if he isn't going to invoke his right of survivor's guilt. He is owed more than his fair share.  
  
Remus has left him a bag. It has, inside it, lunch for the day, a list of things not to mention, an old woolen blanket, a warning not to provoke Snape or insult him, some tea in a thermos, which makes Harry smile when he looks at it.  
  
He pulls out the crumpled sheet of paper from his backpocket, and frowns gently at the creases. It has, written upon it, the instructions on how to apparate into the visitors area of Azkaban. Harry wonders why Hogwarts hasn't taken up a similar system, with identification and intent-testing wards and whatnot. The staff could apparate in and out of the area, and it would be much simpler than always having to walk everywhere, and walk right up to the gate. It would have been invaluable during the war, so immensely helpful that they might have....well, they  _did_  win, but it might have saved them some trouble. And certainly some lives, which were more important than trouble, really.  
  
Who knows, maybe Hogwarts  _does_  have the same thing. Harry hasn't been there in a long, long time.  
  
He slips on his coat, because it's raining once again, even though it's supposedly summer. The air is cold and there's a nasty breeze, that'll turn Harry's arms to goosebumps if he lets it. He doesn't want to be trudging around in the rain looking for somewhere to stay, soaking wet with chattering teeth, miserable and frozen to the bone. Although, it might be an experience. Perhaps not an experience that Harry particularly wants to experience, but an experience none the less.  
  
He considers putting on a beanie, too, but he supposes people consider him eccentric enough.  
  
He slings the bag on his back, and glances at himself quickly in the mirror.  
  
"Fun, fun, fun," he murmurs, trying not to let himself regret his decision, and apparates away.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Harry's mouth hangs open.  
  
Snape's hands hang limply above his head, shackled to the wall in thick, medieval chains. Once pale and elegant, stained with the blood of friends and enemies, they are now slack and mottled, adorned with bruises and bulging veins, that pulse beneath his paper thin skin. His fingernails are long and dirty, with thick stores of grime settling in underneath them. Every now and again, a finger twitches, as if remembering they are indeed a part of the shuddering body slumped below them.  
  
"Ugly ol' bugger, in'he?" grunts a gravelly voice at the door, and Harry cannot help but agree. He winces, and nods to the guard in dismissal. The large man slopes off, whistling as he goes, and Harry is reminded suddenly of Hagrid, which sends a stab of pain through his chest, and he turns his gaze back to the decrepit body in front of him, hanging from the wall like a painting, as useless as a painting. The cell is dank and dark and smells like rotting corpses and human excrement.   
  
"Hello," he says, disappointed to hear his voice coming out meek and quiet. A shudder goes through the man in front of him, but he does not reply, instead choosing to study the cold, grey ground beneath him, letting his black greasy hair create a curtain around his face. Harry shifts slightly, and clenches his fist. He's not quite sure what to say.  _I hate you, you bastard, and I hope you rot in hell forever!_  doesn't seem as appropriate as it did when he was having his blood checked to insure that he was, indeed, Harry Potter, because it appears that Snape already  _is_  rotting in hell. Harry feels a flush of triumph go through him, but not as strong a one as he would have hoped.  
  
"Remus had gone." He states, blankly, feeling no need for lengthy explanations. "I'm filling in." Snape's fingers flex and Harry feels an unstoppable pang of pity go through him, thinking about how much they must ache. Then he starts suddenly, and reminds himself firmly that he  _hates_  Snape, and that he  _deserves_  to be in such a state. If there was ever a person who deserved to wallow in their own faeces, it was Snape, and Hary is sure that he would have an insurmountable group of supporters should he ever wish to pursue the thought.  
  
"Bit filthy in here, isn't it?" he snarks, eyeing the walls.  
  
Snape's voice is a mere shadow of what it once was, coming out thick and hoarse like his mouth is full of treacle, and more bitter than ever; "Rather." It's the first time Harry has heard him speak, save for killing curses, for such a long time, and he likes that Snape has lost his main defence and weapon. It's odd though, because it's so familiar, and it sends a pang of homesickness through him, and longing for happier times, and he scowls. He tries to get a glimpse at the man's face, but he can see nothing behind the hair, so he pulls out the blanket from the bag, steels himself, and carefully sits down in front of the man, wincing as his legs twinge with pains. He sets down the bag, and grimaces, carefully setting his hands down on the blanket, so they don't come in contact with the grimy floor.  
  
"You hungry?" Harry asks once he's settled back, his lips quirking a little. He can almost hear Snape's stomach rumbling. "You want some food?" he taunts. He is enjoying this.  
  
"If it does not trouble you,  _my Lord_ ," Snape spits, and for a moment Harry thinks perhaps he is delirious, and feels a bit disappointed to be dealing with someone insane. But then Snape looks up, his eyes full of knowing and cold intelligence, just like they always were. It was just like Snape to be the only one who  _didn't_  go insane. Harry raises an eyebrow, surprised at Snape's impertinence.  
  
"That was always the way with you, wasn't it?" he says casually, "Biting the hand that feeds you." With Dumbledore's hand in the state that it was when Snape murdered him, Harry feels particularly pleased with himself. Snape, however, doesn't seem nearly so amused.  
  
"Clearly you've mistaken me for one of your entourage of dribbling sycophants," he hisses, "so please forgive me if I don't hasten to lick your feet in gratitude just yet." He seems awfully angry for someone with so little energy, and flecks of spit settle in the cracks of his split lips as he speaks. Harry imagines offering him a sort of lip balm, and the look on the guard's face if he came in and saw Snape sitting in the corner, his lips shiny and smelling of strawberries and cream. Harry cannot help but smile at the mental image, and pulling out a ham sandwich, he waves it in front of Snape.  
  
"You want it?" he asks, smirking a little. Snape's eyes follow the meat encased in bread longingly, and then his gaze flicks back to Harry, as if he is deciding whether or not starving would be preferable to accepting food from his loathed enemy. Harry adopts an smug expression, and Snape looks disgusted as he turns his head away.  
  
"I'm not going until you've eaten it." Harry says, cherishing each second of power over Snape, each small second of retribution for Snape's crimes.  
  
Snape snorts. "I'll eat it with my feet, shall I?"  
  
He rattles the chains above his head, his bony elbows poking out beside either ear, and Harry's mouth falls open. Looking at the vulnerability of Snape's position, his arms above his head, unable to move at all, his legs shoved out in front of him, his back curved in a manner that looks slightly unnatural, something that Harry should have realised as soon as he walked in occurs to him.  
  
Oh, God. He's going to have to  _feed_  him.  
  
By the look on Snape's face, he's realised Harry didn't already have prior knowledge of this fact.  
  
"Ha, ha, ha," Snape chuckles darkly, and Harry curses Remus for not mentioning this. "Didn't Lupin tell you?"  _Bastard_. "Oh  _dear_ ," Snape deliberately bites on his lip and Harry flinches back, his eyes widening, as it splits and small dribble of dark blood trails down Snape's chin, "deceived once again, by one you thought you could trust..."  
  
Harry's blood is starting to boil, staring at Snape's mocking look. He tries to cool it down, wanting to be the one that gets to Snape, rather than vice versa, and pulls his gaze away from Snape's chin to meet his inky eyes. "You're not going to get to me that easily." He's trying not to think of having to go anywhere near Snape's bitter little mouth. Why didn't Remus tell him? Maybe he knew that Harry would refuse to do it if he did...that  _bastard_!  
  
"No?" Snape's voice is starting to wear out, and is nothing more than a hoarse whisper. "Big boy now? Wife and kids and dreamless nights?" Snape's eyes flash like he knows he just scored a point.  
  
"Tea?" Harry asks through gritted teeth. "Or maybe something a little stronger? Poison?"   
  
How he'd like to feed Snape club sandwiches laced with arsenic.  
  
Snape's expression is incredulous. "Was that meant to be a threat, Potter? Because by all means, poison away..."  
  
Harry chooses not to reply, instead he breaks off a piece of the sandwich. He raises his hand up to Snape's mouth and stares him stoically in the eyes. Snape's eyes stay locked with his as he leans forward and takes the food out of Harry's hand with his mouth, and as he pulls away his tongue flicks at Harry's finger, and Harry is startled to feel that it is warm. He doesn't know what he expected; a block of ice, perhaps. It has always been a hard concept for him to grasp, that Snape is human, with blood pumping through his veins and air filling up his lungs, thoughts filling up his mind and feelings filling up his heart. It was always simpler, and certainly not at all difficult, to think of him as an unfeeling monster. Some of his past actions would certainly suggest so.  
  
Harry slowly feeds the sandwich to Snape, who's obviously decided that loud and somewhat indecent enthusiasm is the best course of action, and Harry looks on with an expression of distaste. He supposes that had he not lived with the Dursleys, he never would have thought that someone eating could be so repulsive, but Snape gives Harry the same sick feeling as watching Dudley devouring a whole birthday cake, covered in pink icing and pebble people.  
  
When Snape finishes, he smiles voraciously, an expression that looks more pained than happy. Harry notices that his teeth, many of which used to be pointed and quite fearsome, have been filed down, blunted.   
  
"To prevent us from ripping our wrists open," Snape smirks by way of explanation, catching Harry's eyes at his mouth. It gives him an odd look, somewhat inhuman, which further adds to the animalistic image Harry has in his mind of his former professor. He doesn't know how Snape could  _manage_  to rip his wrists open, in his position, but he doesn't really want a demonstration.  
  
Suddenly, Snape's body spasms, and without warning, he slumps to the side and vomits the entire contents of his stomach all over himself and the floor. Harry watches in horror and the sloppy mess is forced out, followed by what looks like remnants of the previous day's meal, and finally a yellowish liquid that Harry thinks may even be stomach acid.  
  
He leaps to his feet. "What the hell was that?" If Harry were in a prison, he most certainly wouldn't vomit up the only decent food he was likely to get that day. It seems a stupid decision on Snape's behalf. "Don't you know how to eat, anymore? Lost that along with your conscience, did you?"  
  
Snape doesn't reply, immediately, which is something that Harry hasn't ever really experienced. The older man stays panting, his eyes downcast, before he slowly raises his head, bits of vomit still clinging to his sweat soaked glands of greay hair. "Get out," he rasps, and Harry has slung his bag over his shoulder and is halfway out the door before he stops himself, Remus's disappointed face looming in the forefront of his mind. He imagines standing in front of Remus, trying to convince him that Snape, his face blue and his eyes wide and glassy, isn't dead, merely sleeping.  
  
He grunts, sighs, and then pivots on his heel, reluctantly turning to face the cell's occupant. "The other sandwich is for you, then?" he quips.  
  
Snape flicks his hair irritatedly, like he used to do when it blew in his face in the cool air of a Quidditch match, and stares grimly at Harry. He takes a deep breath through his teeth, and spits it on the ground.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
A drip of sweat travels from Harry's hair down his nose. He feels physically sick in the cell, and it's swelteringly hot. He knows it's meant to be so, as a punishment, but he doesn't know how Remus stands it. How Remus can voluntarily visit Snape, and spend time with him, out of the goodness (or misguidedness, as Harry likes to think of it as) of his heart. Harry used to think, when he was younger, that saving someone from death, getting them a lesser penalty of life imprisonment, was helping them, but now he thinks he is definitely sure that death would be preferable.  
  
Harry is furious. More than furious, really, he's going slowly mad, with the realisation that his encounter with Snape is only the first in what is seeming to be an insurmountable number of encounters to come. That he'll have to wake up, yet again, to come and visit this ridiculous excuse for a human being, wallow in excrement and vomit and guilt and blood and severe personality disorders, which is what, Harry has come to the conclusion, Snape clearly has. The bloodthirsty excitement has worn off and now Harry just feels filthy. Filthy and disgusted and angry. He's just finished having tea with Snape, after the accomplishment of the second sandwich, which is the most bizzare situation he's ever found himself in, and he's starting to think that if he stays in there too much longer he'll rip off his skin.  
  
Harry shifts as his muscles start to cramp, and stops himself from running a hand through his hair just in time. He begins loading his belongings into the bag. He's had enough, and he can't wait to get out to someplace clean and fresh and free of sin. So perhaps not a local motel, then.  
  
"Leaving so soon?" Snape rasps, his eyes glinting, and the corner of his mouth twitches, but it's not from amusement. Harry doesn't reply, immediately, instead busies himself packing away the thermos and blanket and whatnot.  
  
"I'm coming tomorrow," he says finally. "You can look forward to that." He says sarcastically, and it doesn't occur to him that with Snape's sad, miserable excuse for a life, it might not be such a ridiculous suggestion.  
  
He slings his bag over his shoulder purposefully and is almost out the door when Snape's voice comes stilted and somewhat desperate, "Potter...!"  
  
Harry stops. He takes a deep breath, and turns around. "Yes?" he says, coldly.  
  
Snape looks disgusted with himself, and his eyes are pleading and insulting at the same time. "Could you...?" he says reluctantly, gesturing vaguely to himself. Harry, at first, doesn't understand what he means, until he realises Snape is still covered in his vomit, and has probably soiled himself a few times since the previous day.   
  
Harry smirks. A flicker of worry crosses his former teacher's face, which gives Harry a surge of satisfaction.  
  
Snape. Worried about  _him_. Oh, life could be  _good_.  
  
He turns around and saunters out the door, and Snape curses him repeatedly.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
That night, Harry can't get Snape out of his head.   
  
When he leaves the prison, he heads straight to the fanciest hotel he can think of, a baser need for creature comforts coming alive in him like never before. His grimy nails ache for soap and clean water, and he can almost feel his mouth salivating at the thought of crips sheets and shiny white tiles and room service. His inner child, curled up inside a spider infested cupboard, covered in grime and blinking up confusedly at him is, for the time being, ignored, as his body takes over and he delights in a hot bath.  
  
But ruining the pleasure of luxury is Snape's face, invading Harry's thoughts and every corner of his mind, filling up the empty spaces like a specter of Harry's past. He sinks back into the hot water and closes his eyes, only to see onyx ones staring back at him, engraved on his eyelids. When he reaches for the soap, he can feel Snape's tongue still twining around his fingertips. When he washes his hair, he imagines Snape's bony elbows poking out in a similar position  _forever_ , locked in his little cell, chained up, with nothing but filth and guilt and pain and the inability to move, and guilt courses through Harry's veins in equal measures of anger. Anger for everything Snape's done and his ability to control Harry's life even while incapacitated, and guilt for leaving him drenched in his own excrement. And then anger for feeling guilty, and so the cycle goes.  
  
Harry remembers, the day before heading to Remus's, in a crummy motel on the outskirts of the city, beating off furiously with thoughts of Snape circling in his mind, and a hot shiver of disgusted guilty pleasure jolts down Harry's spine. He curses, furious with himself for even thinking about this, and roughly scrubs at his legs, which are starting to burn, raw with friction and hot water. He thinks of Snape, his hands hanging above his head, and realises with a sudden shock that if Snape, consumed in his thoughts in the deep hours of the night, became aroused by images and memories that he conjured up in his mind, couldn't reach down and wrap a slick hand around his cock...  
  
" _Stop_!" Harry calls out furiously, leaping out of the bath, sending droplets of water crashing all over the floor. He is terrified of the path his mind keeps threatening to go down. He wraps a towel roughly around himself, and stalks out into the bedroom, and roughly pulls on his frayed pyjamas, embellished with snitches and little red headed people, a large hole starting to appear where smiling, laughing faces of family and friends used to be. It was a parting gift from Dobby, and was given to Harry only days before Dobby was slaughtered in the house-elf genocide committed by angry Death Eaters, whose distaste for the creatures had suddenly outweighed their need for them.  
  
But Snape even breaks through peaceful memories of mourning, although Harry supposes they were always Snape's favourite to interrupt. Harry slumps onto the couch, which is plush, expanisve and ridiculously comfortable, and switches on the television. He flicks through channel after channel, becoming more and more frustrated at the lack of quality, when suddenly an image appears of two men, their naked flesh taking up an obscene amount of the screen, their gasps and groans likely to be audible from several streets away. Harry hastily turns down the volume, and tries to ignore the fact that his mind has already drawn up an image of himself and Snape in a similar position, or the fact that he is already achingly hard, despite the porn only having been on the screen for a manner of seconds.  
  
Harry's mouth falls open as one man's cock slowly slips into the other's mouth, and they both groan obscenely like they've never known such exctasy. Harry makes a furtive movement towards his tight trousers, imagining his professor on his knees, his hands tied up above his head, slowly taking Harry's cock between those pale lips...  
  
" _I HATE HIS FUCKING GUTS_!" Harry roars desperately, turning off the television and springing up angrily. What kind of a pervert puts their parents murderer into sicko bondage fantasies? He is disguted with himself, and is starting to feel physically sick, and makes his way awkwardly to the bed, telling himself it's  _exhaustion_ that's causing all this, cursing the fact that he didn't choose a magical place to stay in. It isn't likely the smiling lady at the clerk will smile and present him with complimentary bottles of Dreamless Sleep if he compliments her choice of earrings again.  
  
He burrows deep into the covers of his bed, intending to  _force_  himself to drop off as soon as possible, and lets out a mortified squeak when his cock comes into contact with the mattress and his hips thrust involuntarily. Harry feels arousal and resignation seep through his veins, and closing his eyes tightly, he slides his hand down his body.  
  
Pushing his hand into his pants, past the weakening band of elastic, he chants feverishly, " _I am not thinking of Snape, I am not thinking of Snape_ ," while his heartbeat becomes erratic and he pulls roughly on his cock, a hand sneaking up to mouth, but he barely has a chance to bring them down to his entrance before he is coming, gasping and moaning like some whore being paid extra for "enthusiasm", and as he jerks his hand out and silently clears away the remnants of his pleasure, he hasn't ever felt so much loathing for himself.  
  
Hatred courses through his veins, as he buries his face into his pillow. Hatred for his past, hatred for his life, for himself and for Lupin and for everyone he's lost and for everyone who's taken them away, but most of all, the hatred that fills up every molecule of Harry's being, is for  _Snape_.  
  
Oh, how Harry  _hates_  Severus fucking Snape.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
When Harry first wakes up, he has forgotten. Forgotten everything, really, except that his bladder is full and his stomach is empty and his toes are cold and his fingers are warm, although considering, this is all relatively new information. He wanders into the bathroom, relieves himself, and opens the door to the shower, his eyes staring unfocusedly at the gleaming tiles. It isn't until he looks down at his morning erection that he is reminded of Snape, and his cheeks burn as he realises that he has come to associate the bane of his existence with his aroused cock.  
  
He washes himself as quickly as possible, trying to avoid creating too much friction with his nether regions, and is packed and out within minutes, his suitcase in hand.  
  
He doesn't have to justify anything to anybody, let alone himself, so he doesn't.  
  
He pays the smiling lady at the desk with a muggle card, and is astounded, as usual, when it is accepted. He knows that there is no reason to be surprised, because it is connected to an account with an abundance of muggle money, growing larger and larger by the year as wizarding money is transferred slowly, and it collects interest, and anybody who has a particularly good day donates to the unofficial "Harry Potter Fund". Harry has become somewhat of a God, to the wizarding world, and he feels a sense of sickened amusement at the thought of people bending down beside their beds at night and praying to him, whispering his name with bated breath. Still, the card is handed back, and he is free to go, having paid like a normal, caring, decent, money-earning citizen, although Harry cannot help but feel like he's gotten away with something that he shouldn't have.  
  
He walks along the street, having shrunken his suitcase to fit inside his pocket, breathing the air into his lungs. The more you concentrate on life, he finds, the more it slips away. He feels the taste of the air in his mouth, the soft trickle of sunlight on his neck, the laughter and shouting in his ears, and it's all less to him than anything else has ever been, and he feels like he's somewhere different than everyone else. He doesn't have to remember anything, anything he's done or seen. Just concentrating on everything; the gravel beneath his feet, the way his leather shoes rub against his little toe, causing a blister that's painful in a good way. His fingers are that stinging numb that one gets when one goes from hot to cold, or vice versa, and he flexes them in the day, testing them out. They are, as of today, turning over a new leaf. They have, so far in their lives, turned over whole forests of leaves, each day when he refuses to admit a past sin, but he doubts they mind.  
  
A car honks, loudly, as he steps onto the road, and jolts him back into awareness.  
  
He leaps back, instinctively, and the driver yells something rude to him. He shrugs and tries to look contrite, but he is aware he hasn't quite mastered that yet, and his reverie is now broken.   
  
Now, he has a  _purpose_ , a place to go. He hadn't registered it, only moments before, but now he can almost see little footsteps in front of him, little red ones, striding towards their final destination. He knows where this destination is; it's the same one as yesterday, and the same one as tomorrow. His time is no longer his own. A murderer is waiting patiently (although Harry thinks he'd tap his foot, if he could muster the strength) for him to arrive, to bring him sustenance and his target-practise for ridicule. Harry will leave, afterwards, only to look forward to the next day, and the next day, and the next day...  
  
Harry scuffs his feet, and shakes his head softly. It doesn't do to think like that. Take it a moment at a time,  _carpe diem_. Whilst still keeping an eye on the future, of course. He supposes that that undermines the whole purpose of  _carpe diem_ , but whoever created that phrase was obviously going to run into  _some_  kind of difficulty in his life. Financial, most likely, especially when retirement came. Harry isn't going to run into difficulty, he's sure of that. Except maybe loneliness, but everybody's a little lonely, he's discovered.  
  
Remus will have sent a little something, Harry knows, through the floo at his place. Harry is supposed to go and pick up whatever it is, and take it to Snape. Cold spam sandwiches, or something equally unappetising, and Harry wrinkles his nose. Harry doesn't really care that Snape has to eat unappetising food, in fact he'd prefer it, but now that his mind has leapt onto that path, he's feeling rather peckish himself. He is filled with the sudden desire for chips. Hot ones, potato-y and covered in salt, all wrapped up in newspaper. He rubs his red hands together in anticipation, and walks away from his little red footsteps to the shop.  
  
Harry is glad that it isn't winter. As he waits and listens to the hot fat crackling, he imagines walking in and having to break the icicles off Snape's nose, and guesses that it's possible that's not far from the truth, in the deepest days of winter. Ah well, Remus will be back by then. He can shovel up Snape's snot stalagmites.  
  
He makes his way leisurely to the prison, walking a lot of the way, apparating the last few thousand kilometres. The chips warm his arms quite nicely, and he can't resist popping a few into his mouth, licking the salt off his lips. He arrives just on "Not-Quite-Lunch", according to his watch, and wonders if it's ever  _exactly_  a time. He got it from Fred and George, so perhaps not. Best not to think about them, now, though, so he brushes the last few dust particles from his shoulders, and presents his hand to the ominous-looking magical machine. It pricks his finger and examines his blood with large googly eyes, and then shoots out a small piece of pink paper that states clearly, "Positive for Harry Potter".  
  
Well, that's always a good sign.  
  
An equally hideous but slightly larger guard (Harry is glad the Dementors are only for special occasions) meets him this time, and leads him silently to the cell. Harry had thought perhaps he might need a number for the cell, but apparently Snape is as notorious inside as out. Speaking of insides, Harry's do a little turn as the door is opened. He hasn't thought about it, but suppose Snape's legilimency is still up to scratch? He tries very hard not to imagine the look on Snape's face if he caught him thinking about him wanking with said mind-reader in mind, and then tries very hard not to think about wanking with said mind-reader in mind. He feels his cheeks heat up, and he starts to feel sick once again, feeling betrayed by his own mind, and he nods jerkily to the guard, who gives him an odd look before sloping off.   
  
When his eyes fall upon Snape, Harry feels both relieved and disgusted. Relieved because he knows he could never be attracted to something as repulsive as the man on the floor in front of him, and disgusted for the very same reason. His insides roil as he steps closer to Snape, and he suddenly realises that Snape is emitting a low, moaning sound, that is reverberating around the room. Something about it unravels Harry's stomach, and then ties it all back up again, and he says, harshly,  
  
"Snape."  
  
Snape's eyes roll back before he looks up, and he grunts, "Kill me, Potter."  
  
Harry notices that physically the vomit is gone, but the stench is still there. His throat gags, and he casts a spell to temporarily disable his nose. "Sorry?" he asks, as if he didn't hear, but he heard Snape perfectly.  
  
Snape wheezes a chuckle. "I wouldn't tell."   
  
Harry places the blanket on the ground, and gestures to the paper in his hands. "You want a chip?" He offers one to Snape, holding it just out of his mouth's reach. Snape glares at him, then shakes his head.  
  
"No," he says hoarsely, "I've decided I'll starve." He smiles toothily, and it's a gruesome sight. He seems in particularly good spirits, especially considering the state Harry left him in yesterday, and Harry is weary.  
  
"Remus would kill me." Harry says.  
  
"Myself and Potter dead. Two birds with one stone." Harry refuses to smile, and Snape raises his head and sniffs. "Although I must admit those do smell rather...edible."  
  
Harry eats a large one rather enthusiastically, and says, "Particularly edible." Then, as the innuendo slips into his head, he splutters, and blushes profusely.  
  
Snape looks almost as if he can't believe his eyes for a moment, and then as if all his Christmases (sad though they might have been) have come at once. He's so particularly amused, that his mouth catches many times around "Bl- _u_ sh-ing, Potter?"  
  
"No," Harry says quickly, and to avoid a quick retort he shoves one of the chips into Snape's mouth that is hanging open. Snape's hot breath cools on Harry's finger, and he grits his teeth and tries to dredge up as many bad feelings as he possibly can, as many memories as he possibly can. He runs his eyes over Snape's greasy hair and hates it, over Snape's large and pimply nose and hates it, over Snape's small, acidic mouth and hates it, over Snape's dark eyes which are  _locked with his_...  
  
"Finished?" Snape asks drily, and Harry  _hates_  his dark, oily voice.  _Hates_  this man, he wants to scream at himself,  _hates_  him for murdering Albus Dumbledore and tormenting him through his childhood and ruining everything that was ever good for him, for feeding information to the Dark Lord which lead to his parents'  _deaths_ , for goading Sirius to his  _death_ , for treating Remus like  _shit_ , for being such an absolute  _shit_  himself...  
  
"You're a  _shit_ , you know that?" Harry spits roughly.   
  
Snape raises an eyebrow, and Harry's exclamation echoes softly around the room. He hears his own voice in his ears, sounding childish and petulant and not at all like someone who had grown up full of righteous anger. Snape continues to look at him, amusement tinged with the typical bitterness and exhaustion and hatred and self-loathing, the latter being something Harry couldn't ever really understand in another person, especially Snape.  _Surely_ , someone so monstrous had to believe in what they were doing, had to be evil to the core, had to feel a sadistic glee and bloodthirsty satisfaction at every wrong he committed.  
  
Not that Harry thinks the world is divided into good people and bad people, he knows that it isn't, he learnt a very long time ago. What's making his world spin is the fact that his mind is subconsciously seperating two Snape's inside his head; the one that was involved in the muder of countless numbers of people, and the one that sits. Sits, and watches, and rots and aches and snarks and is.  
  
And once again, Harry is  _angry_.   
  
"You've a personality disorder, don't you." he says, the words snapping out of his mouth. It's a thought he's been entertaining for a while. It's probably true, and whether is is or whether it isn't, it'll hurt Snape just the same. "You must have, no one who acts like you can be  _normal_. You're always telling us to be smart, when you can even hold a casual conversation with someone? Where's your potions logic when it comes to friendships, huh? Few ingredients, Snape, it's not that  _bloody_ difficult."  
  
Snape grinds his teeth. "That's right, Potter, pick on the man who can't defend himself."  
  
"Always the victim!" Harry roars. Snape snarls, and Harry starts to pace. "It was always everyone  _else_  being cruel, wasn't it? It was always everyone  _else's_  fault. Lucius-" (Snape flinches at the name) "- _convinced_  you to join the Death Eaters. Sirius  _goaded_  you into sending him off. All those muggles were  _begging_  to be killed, weren't they? And wasn't that what Dumbledore said? Please, Severus-"  
  
"You don't know  _anything_  about  _anything_ , you disgusting child, so I suggest you cease before you say something you  _regret_." Spit flicks off Snape's lips, and his eyes blaze with cold fury.  
  
"What are you going to do," Harry says, feeling more alive than he has in a long time, "chain me up?" He delights in the rage on Snape's face, delights in his clenching fists and grinding teeth and flaring nostrils, the jangling of the chains and the futile stretching of the limbs.  
  
But then.   
  
But then, but then, but then, Snape's face changes. Harry expects him to retort back, to spit and insult and scream and then Harry can leave in a huff, after having said everything he's ever wanted to say, so that Snape can wallow in thoughts and guilt, more than he has at the moment, but he  _doesn't_. His face morphs into a smirk, and it is so unexpected that Harry almost jumps back.   
  
"I might just do that," Snape said, his voice low and almost... _suggestive_ , Harry realises, and blushes insanely. At this, Snape clearly realises his theory is correct, and his smirk is smug and disgusted at the same time. "Would you like me to?"  
  
Harry's breath catches in his throat. "What the fuck is  _wrong_  with you?"  
  
The tension is thick in the air. Harry imagines taking a large guilotine, and hacking through it ferociously. He feels like he's in a dream, but so very alive at the same time. There is dirt underneath his shoes and stench sifting through his lungs, sweat clinging to his pores, but the background is almost shimmering, and the air is so thick with something Harry can't quite identify. The conversation doesn't make any sense, and to see it written down would be ridiculous. He feels like he doesn't know what either of them are going to do next. He's never felt like he doesn't know. Everyday of his life for a very long time has been planned, and it's an envigourating feeling.  
  
"Me?" Snape asks. He shrugs, and rattles his chains. "I'm just a  _murderer_." He hisses this last word, and Harry snaps,  
  
"Too fucking right, you are!"   
  
Snape's eyes widen, almost madly. "I'm just a  _cold-blooded killer_."  
  
Harry grits his teeth. Snape is taking a perverse pleasure in this, and he isn't sure why.  
  
"I am," Snape says, licking his cracking lips, "an  _unfeeling monster_. A jailbird, a rotting corpse infested with guilt. Look at my hands, Potter!" Snape shakes them in his shackles. "They're stained with the blood of friend and foe alike!"  
  
Harry shakes his head and takes a step backwards. "You're fucking crazy."  
  
Snape's arms go slack, and his body slumps. He raises an eyebrow, and asks tiredly, "Wouldn't you be?" and Harry feels like flicking it off him like an annoying insect. Snape is trying to gain his sympathy, he's trying to empathise him, he's trying to  _humanise_  himself, and Harry isn't having a word of it.  
  
"I think you were mad in the first place. Every decision you've ever made in your life says so. Every time you had a chance for something good, you threw it all away. For what, Snape? For this?"  
  
And  _that_  is what Harry has never understood. How could someone, someone who appeared to be so  _bloody_  intelligent, someone who understood everything and everyone and every situation, someone with precision and skill and intellect and education, how could someone as brilliantly clever as Snape be so fucking  _stupid_?  
  
"Haven't you ever heard of a master plan, you idiot boy! The bigger picture?" Snape says it like they are back in school, like it's another one of those simple concepts that Harry is too stubborn and block minded to grasp.  
  
"You're calling  _me_  an idiot?" Harry knows he isn't, now. He didn't, back when, back then, when he though he was stupid, when everyone always told him he was, but now, now it is different. Now he  _knows_  he isn't, and now he knows Snape is. "Look at us. Where are you, Snape? And where am I?"  
  
"In the exact same place, I should have thought." Snape says dryly, and Harry should have seen that coming.  
  
"Acting so high and mighty, Snape, but one would think, looking at the two of us, that I appear to have made better decision in my life than  _you_." Harry spits, and then allows himself to smirk.  
  
"Oh, surely you cannot believe that  _rot_." Snape snarls. "Each and every time you stumbled off the precipice of a cliff in your lifetime, turning a blind eye to numerous warnings and signals, there was a crowd of people who had dedicated their lives to building the safety net that  _had_  to be there should such an eventuality come about, and even for a man of  _your_  calibre, Potter, there were far too many instances when such safety nets had to be put in place!"  
  
Harry starts to scoff. "What cliffs-"  
  
"It was an analogy, you stupid boy!" Snape snaps.  
  
"I know that!" Harry snaps back.  
  
They stare at each other for a moment, sucking in deep breaths of the dungeon-like air. Harry glares at Snape and Snape glares back, and Harry feels that although he is glaring down and Snape glaring up, that the playing field still feels unequal in Snape's favour.  
  
Harry grits his teeth. "I don't think I can stand this anymore. Hanging around with Dumbledore's murderer-"  
  
"Oh for  _Christ's sake_ , I didn't  _murder_  Albus!" Snape roars, then immediately snaps his mouth shut, looking supremely displeased with himself.  
  
Harry can't  _believe_  this. "You're  _denying_  it? I was there, you bastard, I saw you! I saw you murder him!"  
  
Harry can't believe Snape is protesting.  _Being_  there in the cell was incriminating enough. "It wasn't murder-"  
  
"Or whatever the fuck you call it so that you can sleep at night."   
  
There is a pause, before Snape says crisply, "Assisted suicide."  
  
Harry is so shocked that he lets forth a laugh. " _What_? I don't  _believe_  you-"  
  
"Like the time when no one believed you when you staggered out from the graveyard, claiming the Dark Lord had risen again?"  
  
"I am  _nothing_  like you, Snape!" Harry says, pointing a rigid finger at Snape's face. " _Nothing_."  
  
"We're more alike than you know, Potter..." Snape says, and if it was anybody else Harry would have insisted it was a sing song voice.  
  
"I'm leaving." Harry states in a disgusted voice, and spins around on his heel.  
  
"Dearest Harry," Snape begins in a high pitched voice, "don't forget to feed my pet Snape while I'm away, love Remus..."  
  
"Fuck you!"  
  
"I'm informing Lupin, Potter, of your continued assurance that malnutrition is a normal way to function-"  
  
"FUCK  _YOU_!"  
  
The thick door clangs shut as Harry slams it behind him, tears prickling his eyes as he strides down the rat infested halls.  
  
He hasn't cried since he was seventeen.   
  
A very long time.  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

  
He can't sleep.  
  
He doesn't want to attribute this to Snape, so he tries telling himself first that it's because of the heat. Then because of the cool air on his skin. Then because of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (absolutely bollocks, that one) then because of nervousness, anxieties, then because he didn't eat enough, then because he drank too much. But it's starting to get late, and Harry is running out of possible excuses to propose to himself. He doesn't want to attribute it to Snape because he knows then he'd be letting himself admit that Snape  _gets_  to him. Then he'd be allowing himself to admit that Snape is his weakness, his kryptonite, not merely an annoyance. Storming out of Azkaban, sobbing like a little girl, could be put down to his over-emotional state caused by lack of sleep, but not  _sleeping_  because of Snape... although, really, Harry thinks to himself sadly, the reason he's not sleeping  _is_  Snape. Harry doesn't know how Snape does it, but he digs his way under Harry's skin and gnaws away, and sets Harry's teeth grinding and his fingers clenching more than anyone else Harry has ever encountered. Out of all the other hundreds of Death Eaters and murderers and rapists...why Snape? Lucius Malfoy was worse than Snape, as far as being a villain went (as far as the graveyard, now, Harry thinks, satisfied). Voldemort was  _much_  worse than Snape, was probably one of the worst villains history had the ability to note. Voldemort was the cause of thousands of miserable lives and horrible deaths and gruesome nightmares. He tells himself that Snape still gets to him, even after all these years, because Voldemort and Lucius are dead, and Snape isn't, and it's like unfinished business, like worldly retribution hasn't been carried out. But that doesn't feel right to him. Not a lot feels right to him these days, though, so he's not sure if he can trust that.  
  
He still can't sleep.  
  
His feet are bone cold, and he imagines them shining like a beacon in the night, but the rest of him is drenched in sweat, hot and cold flushes going up and down his spine. He flings the duvet covers off, only to have the sweat cool in the night air and send goose bumps all over his skin, making him shiver and pull them onto himself again. This is some comfort, for a while, until he overheats and has to throw them off again.  
  
He feels completely out of his mind.  
  
The night, the hours, the seconds and minutes and thoughts, have all turned into darkness around him. He can't remember how long he's been lying on his side, he can't remember when he knocked his glass of water off the bedside table, he can't remember when he heard the shouting outside. He doesn't know whether it's twelve or five, and it's too dark to see if his room has changed around him. It's pitch black and without his glasses, Harry can't see a thing. There could be an army of Death Eaters standing in his room, and he wouldn't know. A dead person, a ghost from his past, could rise up and be standing just inches away, their glassy eyes peering at Harry in the dark. Their blood drenched hair could be just seconds away from dripping onto his face, into his mouth...  
  
He emits a gasp, and pulls the covers over his head. He bites his lip and silently begs to be allowed to sleep. He squeezes his eyes shut and chants under his breath, " _Please, please, please_..." and despite his fears of being in a room full of corpses from his past, he feels alone.  
  
Alone, and cold, and scared, and he wishes there was someone lying next to him. He wishes he could reach over and take someone's hand in his, warm and smooth and comforting. They could lean over, and whisper sweet soothing nonsense to him, and he could smile and nod his head and thank them for sending away the monsters under the bed and in the cupboards.  
  
But there isn't. He's alone in a room, a small impersonal room, and he doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what he's doing, he doesn't know why he isn't sleeping, and he tries desperately to stop the tear that is hovering in his eye from falling down his cheek, but fails. He shakes his head frantically, but now that one has started, they all follow, pouring down his cheeks. He rolls over onto his back, and furiously tries to stop himself, but they won't. He's hysterical from exhaustion, he decides, as the tears roll down the sides of his face into his ears.  
  
All he has to do, he tells himself, is just wait till morning. Till the light slips through the curtains and fills up the room, and the birds chirp and the flowers errupt and the darkness is beaten into submission by the new day, and then he can get up and leave and then he has to -  
  
No. He'll think...he'll think about the morning, just now, that's good enough. Once it's morning he can think about what he has to do with the day, but the morning isn't the day, it's just the morning. That's all he needs at the end of his dark tunnel at the moment, there doesn't need to be any obstacles after that.  
  
He feels like he is drowning, like the sheets that are sticking to his sweat slicked forehead are trying to drag him down and suffocate him, and he throws them off, gasping in the air.  
  
 _Oh for Christ's sake, I didn't murder Albus!_  
  
Snape's voice suddenly echoes inside Harry's head, and Harry frowns. Why  _would_  Snape bother denying it? How could  _Avada Kedavra_  be considered anything other than murder? It certainly didn't look like Dumbledore had any part in it, from where Harry was standing. And why would Dumbledore, knowing everyone's fierce dependence on and loyalty to him, organise his own death at the hands of one of his most trusted friends? Which is what Snape would have been, to have been involved in such a scenario. Why would Dumbledore choose to abandon everyone, right in the middle of it all?  
  
 _I know what it's like to think the absolute worst of someone and then find out you were dead wrong_.  
  
Remus may have been wrong, but Harry isn't wrong.   
  
"I'm not wrong." he insists aloud, and no one in the room disagrees.  
  
He isn't.  
  
 _You don't know anything about anything, you disgusting child..._  
  
He does. He knows every emotion there is to know, he's felt them at their most extreme, and he's had every experience there is to have. He knows about love and loss and he knows about war and fighting and sacrifices. He knows about torture and hatred and betrayal and grief. He knows everything that Snape knows. More, he thinks. He knows more.  
  
"I know more." he states, and once again, there is no one to disagree.  
  
 _But what if...?_  
  
That was the question, really, not "To be or not to be", which can be easily be turned into "What if I live? What if I die?" But really, he mustn't. He absolutely mustn't. How could he hope to stay sane if he questioned whether everyone was innocent or not? If he went around wondering if maybe every murderer had just been wronged, if what they had done wasn't unprovoked murder, but a strategised move in the middle of a full scale war? If it was all just a big plan cooked up beforehand, so that when Harry finally encountered Voldemort, there wouldn't be anyone there, in that place lost to time? So that all the other Death Eaters were out of the way, so that no one could hurt him or sneak up on him? So that someone right in the inner circle, someone who was trusted the most, could weaken the Dark Lord, could kill off his most powerful followers, ensuring the continued existence of mankind as they knew it...  
  
Harry springs up, his eyes wide.  
  
"No," he murmurs, a soft warning to his tired mind.  
  
There weren't any Death Eaters because Voldemort had wanted a one-on-one battle. Right? But...but why would he want that? Wouldn't he want to ensure his victory? Why would he bother risking it all for a chance to toy with Harry?  
  
"He was mad!" Harry mutters. "Completely and utterly crazed!"  
  
Crazed enough to believe that someone who had just killed one of his most powerful enemies was clearly an ally of his, despite that person's previous betrayal and his enemy's obvious deterioration? Crazed enough to be fooled by a clever and spy-trained Occlumens, working in secret to sabotage every one of his planned genocides?  
  
"Snape's a bastard!"  
  
A bastard that had saved his life on countless occasions, a bastard that Dumbledore, one of the most intelligent beings of all time, had trusted implicitly? A bastard that had been bullied and terrorized when younger, despised and neglected by his parents, hated by his peers and housemates?  
  
"He was a  _freak_!" Harry shouts.  
  
A freak like the Dursleys said Harry was? A freak like the funny little boy with broken glasses and no friends? A freak like the boy locked under the cupboard, catching flies for fun?  
  
 _A freak like you, Harry?_  
  
"SHUT UP!" Harry roars, and suddenly there is a loud  **bang** , and Harry nearly jumps out of his skin.  
  
"Could you shut the fuck up? We're trying to sleep here!" a muffled voice bellows through the wall.  
  
Harry's breath catches in his throat, his heart pounding.  
  
"Sorry," he says bleakly, and drops down onto his back, his mind racing. He turns over, and sighs loudly.  
  
He still can't sleep.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
When Harry opens his eyes, which are slightly sticky, and he has to squint as the sunshine hits them through the curtains, a slow smile spreads across his face. He snuggles into the sheets for a moment, then slowly sits up. He stretches his toes, warmed from the sheets, and staggers out of bed. He has an efficient shower (" _Fuck you, Snape..."_  he groans hoarsely as he fists his cock), before packing up his few things into his little suitcase, shrinking them to fit. He pays the fee, small as it is for such a mediocre establishment, and slipping his miniature suitcase into his pocket, he stumbles out into the day, into the big wide world, and he isn't afraid. He isn't angry or sad or lonely or directionless. He isn't lost or tormented or depressed. He's just happy he got through the night.  
  
He spends his morning doing useful things, like stocking up on Dreamless sleep (the lady in the shop informs him that it's not good to shrink it, but he ignores her; what does she know?) and eating and drinking coffee (the dregs of which stick to his tongue and the back of his mouth) and musing on things (like whether he could walk down Diagon Alley hand in hand with another man, and hope not to get beaten up). Everything still feels slightly surreal, like a movie with the yellow tinge that they use for a dream state. Harry feels like that, like he is happy but it's merely a flashback. Like he's seeing it through someone else's eyes, almost, but he isn't and he's glad because he's out of that room. Harry knows it isn't the motel's fault, but he isn't going back there again.  
  
He goes to Remus's today, to see what Remus has sent over, and it's nothing interesting. Harry wonders why he doesn't just send money so that Harry could pick something up himself and they could save Remus the effort of having to get it, but Harry guesses Remus doesn't trust him enough not to shirk his responsibilities. He thinks that maybe, too, everything that Remus buys is ridiculously cheap, but with food it's hard to tell, and with money it's absolute. Harry doesn't mind that Remus is poor, it's certainly not of his own making, and Harry wishes Remus would take more "charity", as he likes to call it. He won't hear a word of it.  
  
Harry isn't looking forward to facing the dubious looking chicken in the basket, so he puts a preserving spell on it, and the spam from the other day (though that looks pretty far gone, now), and picks up some bread and cheese on the way to the prison. One would think that the memories from his childhood would have put him off such simple meals, but simplicity has grown on him, in a way he never thought it would. Maybe Snape has been presented with more lavish meals in his time, but beggars can't be choosers.  
  
Harry arrives at Azkaban early afternoon, and he wonders if Snape's stomach is rumbling. This time, after he's been through the wards and the little machine that pricks his blood (keeping this up, Harry's going to have to start bandaging his hands), the guard, the same one who escorted Harry the first time, gives him an odd look as he leads Harry along the dark and confining corridors.  
  
"Remus dead?" he asks gruffly, and Harry looks at him, startled, before he makes sense of the question. He didn't know that the guard knew Remus, but he supposes if Remus has been doing this for a long enough time, it was inevitable the two would talk. Stilted, obviously, but enough to trade personal essentials.  
  
"No, no," he assures the guard, "just in America."  
  
He doesn't feel any need to elaborate, and the guard nods, accepting the answer. He's large, about three times the size of Harry, and has coarse hair and filthy clothing. Harry wonders where prisons find these people, because they always seem to exist only in stories, but he supposes they must lurk somewhere (like under bridges, his mind supplies, and he barely suppresses a chuckle) and get pressed into duty when they are found. The guard appears to be chewing something over in his head as well as his mouth, as he drags his large feet over the dirty floor, and finally, he coughs.  
  
"You his...you his boy-thing, aye?" he says, and Harry frowns slightly.   
  
"Who, Remus?" The idea has certainly occurred to him before, but there's always been that barrier - Remus has always been the closest thing to a parent he's ever had. Sirius was, briefly, but Harry doesn't like taking things into account that have been taken away from him.  
  
The guard looks disgusted, and shakes his head. "Nah, nah, nah. That...that Snape." He points a big, chubby finger in a vague direction, and the fingernail is long and covered in grime, and Harry wonders if it's a necessity to be dirty in a place like this.  
  
Then he stares at the guard, shocked that such an idea would occur to him. "Are you kidding?" he asks, and hopes he's put enough disgust and resentment into his voice to quash any further rumours. Not that Harry particularly cares what a few low class prison guards think of him, but if he's that transparent...unless they're just assuming because he's young and devoted. So that's what everyone thinks he is? Some trollop? He is offended, and wonders where the days have gone where he was respected merely for being Harry Potter. He hated those days, yes, but he still wonders where they've gone.  
  
The guard looks uncomfortable, and Harry is pleased. "Well, 'e ain't a pre'ey bloke, 'ats f'sure..." That's the second time the guard has mentioned Snape's physical aesthetics, and Harry thinks perhaps he's missing the point.  
  
"Yeah, and he's a  _murderer_!" Harry says pointedly, although he supposes that a statement like that doesn't hold much weight in Azkaban. There's also the doubt running through his mind about whether or not Snape  _is_  a cold-blooded killer or the saviour of humanity, but he doesn't want that to show in his voice just yet, until he's decided his position. He's still offended, anyway. He could do much better than Snape, couldn't these oafs see that? What, does he  _radiate_  homosexuality? Harry is reminded of the muggle expression, "Gay-dar", and he feels vaguely queasy as he looks at the guard, who shrugs.  
  
"Well, you done a fair few in y'time, aye?" He is reasonably soft spoken for such a brute, but Harry isn't concentrating on his rough exterior.   
  
His mouth falls open. "A fair few  _what_ , exactly?" he asks, starting to blush at the implications. He feels self-conscious, and defensive, and almost like he's being taken advantage of.  
  
The guard looks at Harry like he's mad. "Killin's," he mutters, shaking his head softly, and Harry breathes a quick sigh of relief, before he frowns.  
  
"Out of necessity!" he protests.  _I'm not like these people!_  he wants to shout, but he doesn't know if he could prove it.  
  
The guard snorts, as if Harry has said something ridiculous. "All killin's ar'out of necessi'y." He says it like he's stating a very simple fact to a very small child, and Harry wants to snap back, but they are at the door to the cell, and the guard is fumbling with the keys, and then the door is open. The guard looks him up and down, and asks if he'll be back tomorrow. Harry replies in the affirmative, and the guard gives him a most unfathomable look before slinking off.  
  
"Honestly," he mutters under his breath, shaking his head in disbelief, and he slips into the cell, closing the large door slowly behind him, which sends an echo around the small room. As he takes his steps forward, and his eyes adjust slowly to the light, he feels like he's wearing those cheap 3-D glasses for muggle children. One side, the blue one, takes in Snape's chafed wrists, and his bony body, and the large circles under his eyes. It watches the way he breathes, erratically and thickly, and it takes in his soft groans of pain and hunger. It eyes the surroundings, and how awful it must be for someone to exist in. It sees Snape hating himself for organising to kill Dumbledore, it sees Snape chanting under his breath in Harry's first Quidditch match to save his life, it sees Snape sneaking up behind some of his closest friends and slitting their throats in the dead of the night, so that muggle children can stay sleeping in their beds, blissfully ignorant. It sees a man, tortured and battered and neglected and hated and maltreated for year after year after year, finally thrown into his own living hell for an act meant to save the very people who'd ruined his life from a fate worse than death. And finally, it sees himself, standing in front of this man, sneering and mocking him, screaming at him when his body, so used to squalor, couldn't deal with good food devoured so quickly. This flickers in front of his eyes, a lifetime in a few seconds, and Harry feels a little travel sick, and a little like his world has been flipped upside down. He just got this side of the glasses the night before, in his exhausted ramblings, jammed abruptly onto his face.   
  
Harry feels disgusted, with himself especially, and he clutches the brown paper bag in his hand and murmurs, "Snape?"  
  
 _But what if he isn't...good?_  whispers a voice in Harry's ear, and Harry nods vigorously.  
  
That what if, again, that what if, what if, what if? It's valid, it's possiblle, it's likely, and it's probably true. What if Snape was, as many students had whispered, the embodiment of evil? Far fetched, perhaps, but what of all the things Harry doesn't know? All the (hundreds? thousands?) of people he's killed? There are plenty of terrible, disgusting, sicko people in the world, and what if Harry is standing there, feeling sorry for the modern-day Hitler? What if Harry is visiting, jerking off over, spending time in the presence of a human-shaped monster? His red 3-D eye glares at Snape's sneer. At Snape's flashing eyes, refusing to meet Harry's. At Snape, tormenting Harry on his first day at school. At Snape, on his knees, kissing the hem of the robes of the most insane murderer that ever lived. At Snape, goading Sirius into rash action. At Snape, striding up to Dumbledore, hatred etched on every inch of his face, hissing, " _Avada Kedavra!_ "  
  
Harry stands there, silently, an inner battle raging. His fists clench, and the paper bag starts to shred, but he's too busy staring holes through Snape's head and grinding his teeth to notice. Snape pays no notice, following a spider with his eyes as it makes its way leisurely across the stones, and as it starts to climb onto Harry's shoe, it starts to squirm, and suddenly it sparks, frying in the intensity of Harry's thoughts. Snape raises an eyebrow, and finally looks up at Harry.  
  
"Bee in your bonnet, Potter?" he rasps. He pulls himself up slightly, and Harry shakes his head, doubt and hatred skipping through his blood hand in hand.   
  
"I'm trying to figure you out," he mutters to himself, and studies Snape's head, like the answers might be written there, amidst the strands of greasy hair. He doesn't know what to say to Snape, now, now that he could either be a modern day saint, or a Lucifer reincarnate. A friend or a foe.  
  
Snape, who apparently has better hearing than Harry gave him credence for, looks vaguely amused, which perplexes Harry even more. "Oh?" he asks, and the corner of his mouth twitches, and Harry decides Snape must have decided to be odd just to irk Harry. "And what have you concluded thus far?"  
  
Harry shakes his head slowly. It's starting to hurt, thinking this much, arguing with himself this much. His eyes hurt, too, from arguing with each other, especially since they're seeing the same thing. He raises up his hand, clean and smooth, and runs it through his hair. "I...I don't know." He doesn't, he hasn't a clue, and he's at a loss.  
  
Snape tuts, and shakes his head back and forth. "Granger always was a better researcher than you were," he says, like he's disappointed, and Harry stiffens.  
  
"Don't...don't talk about Hermione," he says softly. He doesn't want to think about her now. He doesn't want to think about  _all_  those people, all the people he used to talk to, whose lips were warm when placed on his cheek, whose hands were soft when clasping his, whose tears were salty and wet when mixing with his own. All those people who are now rotting somewhere.  _Rotting_. The word echoes around in Harry's skull, and Harry grimaces. Skin disintegrating, eyes falling out of their sockets, roots growing through their once pumping hearts, worms burrowing into their once lively brains, spiders crittling over their most private places...  
  
"It's not as though she's likely to take offence," Snape says, casually. "She's dead, isn't she, Potter?" Snape asks it like he'd ask if the weather had cleared up, and Harry's jaw clenches tight. Snape looks amused, still, a look misplaced on his gruesome face. "They raped her, did they tell you that? Perhaps they thought it wasn't for your naive ears, but they did. Many times. In fact, I heard-"  
  
"Shut  _up_!" Harry snarls. The bag drops onto the floor, but he doesn't notice, his fingernails digging into his palms, not sharp enough to cut but not blunt enough not to cause pain. He can't believe Snape has it in him to be so cruel about someone so pure and good and unselfish, and the part of him that still detests Snape laughs and says,  _Can't you?_  
  
"Why?" Snape hisses, and it looks like the quick retort has taxed him a little, as he sucks in a deep breath. Harry's body shakes with rage as Snape continues, "What difference does it make, Potter? Perhaps you think that honouring her memory is likely to resurrect her? Do you suppose she would have cared if her old Professor made an analytical observation of her experiences?"  
  
Harry clenches his teeth. "The difference is that she's a  _human being_ , you arsehole!"  
  
Snape shakes his head, looking indifferent. "No, Potter. Now, I believe, she is merely a deteriorating corpse-"  
  
"Don't you care about  _anyone_?" Harry bursts out, and his metaphorical glasses fall off his face in his blind rage.  
  
Snape smirks, the cracked pieces of his lips tugging away from one another. "I am an  _unfeeling monster_ -"  
  
"No you're not, no one bloody is!" Harry isn't sure where that came from, but he doesn't have time to think, because Snape is already sniping,  
  
Snape's arms tremble as he tries to pull himself up. "Are you certain of that?"  
  
"YES!" Harry bellows, his body rigid, his face muscles tight.  
  
"So certain of everything, are you?"  
  
" _YES_!"  
  
Wait. What?  
  
"Even me?" Snape says swiftly, his parched throat causing his voice to rasp. "Certain of me, Potter?" Harry stares at him, taken aback. "Do you trust me, definitely? Certainly? Or do you not?" Does he? Harry's mouth falls open slightly. "Did I kill Dumbledore for my own glory, or to better mankind? Do I deserve to be here?" Snape rattles his chains, and a hand goes to Harry's mouth. "Does anyone?" Harry opens and closes his mouth, unable to form any sort of comprehensible thought. "Are you attracted to me," Snape says in a low, almost seductive tone of voice, and Harry feels it travel throughout his whole body, "or merely tired and confused?"  
  
Harry gasps, his eyes widening comically, and his heart leaps to his throat. The tips of his fingers tingle. "What the...?" he mutters, but then suddenly he understands, and his hands clasp his head. "Get out!" he shouts, as if scratching the skin on the outside can remove the Legilimens from the inner workings of his mind. He can almost feel Snape in there, wriggling around like a little black worm.  
  
Snape, through his phlegm and dried blood and amusement, gives a bitter chuckle. It snorfles on through a cough, and Harry doesn't think he's ever seen Snape laugh properly like this, but he's feeling so unbelievably invaded and naked and  _foolish_ , he doesn't have the chance to appreciate it for what it is. He would have rather Snape had cut him open and inspected his insides, and he shakes his head emphatically.  
  
"I can't  _believe_  you!" he snaps, his hands still clasped at either ear, and he knows it's a ridiculous thing to say.  
  
Snape chokes slightly, and looks up at Harry with superiority. "How very stupid you still are, Potter..." he muses.  
  
"I am  _not_!" Harry snaps, anger and embarrassment flushing his cheeks red.  
  
"And how very easy to antagonise you are..."  
  
"I am-"  
  
Harry snaps his mouth shut. Snape raises an eyebrow, an effective gesture despite his position.  
  
Harry is feeling thwarted, and he doesn't like it. _"You_ ," he says, pointing at Snape, willing intuitive insults to come to him, but nothing arrives in time.  
  
"Are what?" Snape finishes for him. "A murderer, like you?" He winces as the words scrape against his throat, but with stiff shoulders he ruthlessly continues. "A recluse, like you? Lonely, mad, plagued by nightmares, just like  _you_?"  
  
Harry burrows his fingers into his hair, close to cracking. "Would you  _please_  get  _out_  of my  _head_!" he pleads desperately, and Snape looks at him boredly.   
  
"Would you  _please_ -" (he says, mockingly) "-allow me my lunch?"  
  
Harry stares at Snape for a long moment, his brain needing moments to collect itself. He can't believe he didn't think to close his mind before he came in. He can't believe Snape has seen all his thoughts...! How he'd love to rifle through Snape's mind, how much easier everything would be, how fun it would be to see how  _Snape_  likes it. Why hadn't anyone ever trained  _him_ , Harry, to be a Legilimens? Wouldn't it have been helpful for him to know what was going on in his enemies' minds? But then Harry thinks of Voldemort's crazed, blood red irises, and decides perhaps not. Snape is watching him as though he is a barely interesting muggle television programme, and Harry flinches. His eyes fall to the ground, where his paper bag is waiting patiently for him to notice it once more, and he leans down and snatches it up, checking it for spiders. He curses as he realises he's forgotten a blanket to sit on, and Snape snorts.  
  
"Afraid of a little dirt, Potter?" he sneers.  
  
Harry wrinkles his nose. "This place is like a mud-coated abbattoir." He pulls off his outer jacket, making a mental note to get it cleaned as soon as he leaves, and places it on the floor. He tries to ignore Snape running his eyes up and down Harry's body. Snape licks his lips, and Harry isn't sure if it is intentional, and then he slowly stretches out his legs in front of him, breathing a harsh hiss as he allows his back to curve.  
  
"Bread today," Harry informs him, trying to maintain an air of professionalism, "and cheese." No thoughts, no emotions, and he'll be safe.  
  
Snape looks him squarely in the eyes. "Have you a knife?" he asks, his fingers twitching slightly above his head.  
  
Harry opens then closes his mouth a few times. "No," he murmurs, and Snape's eyes fall closed for a moment.  
  
"I don't suppose they allowed you your wand, either?"  
  
Harry's wand is sitting in the entrance area. He shakes his head, and shrugs. "I have hands," he says, and rips off some of the bread, shoving it in Snape's face.  
  
"Not a very luxurious spread today, is it?" Snape asks, as if he hadn't just broken into the most private thing a human being can possibly have, before wrapping his mouth around the bread and Harry's fingers. Harry thinks it is intentional, but a tingle travels up his hand and down his spine nevertheless, settling somewhere below his bellybutton and above his knees, and he pulls his eyes away from Snape's to blush. He hates himself right now.  
  
"What would you prefer?" he asks, and Snape chews his bread thoughtfully.  
  
"I'd prefer Lupin bring it, actually," he says, and Harry whips his head up to stare at him. "Lupin's more amusing."  
  
Harry splutters, then growls. "I have no interest in being amusing to  _you_ , Snape." Harry shakes his head, trying to force himself to be cool, calm, and distant, but he's feeling like he's slowly drowning in a sea of confusion, and he busies himself trying to get the wrapping undone on the cheese.  
  
"Clearly," Snape says, and Harry feels insulted, despite himself. "Although, I rather meant that Lupin...amuses me." The intonation he puts on "amuses" makes Harry frown, and pause, even though he knows that's the response Snape wants.  
  
"What do you mean?" he asks slowly, careful not to allow his urge to look up into Snape's eyes.  
  
"Well, of course, my current position prohibits many different kinds of  _amusement_ , unless, of course," (and here Snape's voice takes on a dry quality) "you're partial to those sorts of bondage situations-"  
  
Harry splutters, his vow to be indifferent forgotten. "What the hell are you-"  
  
"And I'll admit," Snape interrupts, "in his youth, Lupin was certainly into the rougher kinds of  _amusement_ -"  
  
"What the  _fuck_ -"  
  
"But now, he leaves the country with naught but a message from his latest catch-"  
  
" _WHAT_? I-You! When - Remus -"  
  
"Eloquent as ever, I see-"   
  
"HOLD ON!" Harry leaps up onto his feet again, needing time to breathe. His pulse is racing, suddenly, and thoughts are whizzing so fast through his head, he needs a second to catch one and pin it down. He knows that it's likely a lie, but as he looks at Snape, and his contemplative smirk, and he thinks of Remus, and his determined blushing, Harry's mouth falls open.  
  
"You-" He snaps his mouth shut. "You...you and Remus?" He can't believe it.  
  
Snape smirks. "Oh, indeed. Many times."  
  
That wasn't what Harry meant to ask, and he blushes and splutters, again. "But he never-"  
  
"Told you?" Snape looks him up and down, and Harry feels naked, again. "Clearly, or you wouldn't be entertaining such illicit fantasies-"  
  
"-which you had  _no right_  to look at!" Harry snaps. He blinks, and adds, "And they're just bloody products of-"  
  
"-an overactive imagination?" Snape finishes. "Which of  _course_  stemmed from all the terrible  _stress_  in your life-"  
  
"-because of having to come along and listen to YOU and all your f-"  
  
"-all my what, Potter? All my admissions, all my facts? Does the truth sting, boy?"  
  
Harry shakes his head, incredulously, and shakes a finger at Snape. "It isn't as though you've ever given a shit about the truth!" he shouts, and Snape tuts.  
  
"On the contrary, Mr Potter," he says smoothly, "one must have a great appreciation and respect for the truth to lie, and to lie well-"  
  
"Why  _bother_?" Harry retorts. "What's the fucking  _point_ , now?" He breathes an angry sigh, and stares at the older man. "It's all over, Snape," he states, and his voice has dropped from furious to tired. "There's nothing left. Why bother lying  _now_?"  
  
Snape glares at Harry, and rattles his chains, which Harry realises is becoming as natural to him as another facial expression. "Do you suppose I have anything  _better_  to do, Mr Potter?" he asks bitterly, and Harry is surprised that Snape is letting him see a moment of something that looks very similar to weakness.  
  
Harry shrugs, and crosses his arms in front of him. "You could repent," He suggests, trying not to smile.  
  
" _When they said repent, I wonder what they meant_..." Snape murmurs to himself, and Harry looks down at him, confused.  
  
"What's that?" he asks, bemused, and Snape shakes his head.  
  
"Doesn't your generation listen to music?"  
  
Harry gives a half-hearted shrug. "Presumably, but I don't."  
  
"No?" Snape doesn't sound surprised. "What  _do_  you do then, Potter? Besides, of course, come to mock old men taking their last, tortured breaths-"  
  
Harry snorts, and protests, "You're not an old man, you're a-"  
  
"Let me remind you," Snape hisses, "that you  _yourself_  are renowned for the murder of the century; ergo, those who live in glasshouses  _should not_  cast stones."  
  
Harry wasn't going to say 'murderer' anyway. "Well,  _I_  didn't kill Albus Dumbledore, did I?" he shoots back, feeling oddly disappointed that they're back to this again, but he quashes the feeling.  
  
Snape raises his eyebrow. "And I didn't kill Weasley Number-"  
  
"Don't you  _dare_ ," Harry snarls, furious at giving Snape a chance to bring it up, "how was I supposed to know-"  
  
"In _deed_ , and how was I supposed to know that merely doing Albus's bidding would condemn me for the rest of my life?"  
  
Harry laughs mirthlessly. "Don't even  _try_  to play that card, Snape. Oh yes, how could you  _possibly_  have known that you'd get in  _trouble_  for murdering someone?" Harry bats his eyelashes idiotically, and Snape looks at him coolly.  
  
"Well,  _you_  don't appear to have," he states, and Harry rolls his eyes.  
  
"It was a..." War, he begins to say, and Snape raises his eyebrows.  _Oh dear. Good point._  
  
"I saved..." Lives, and Snape's lip twitches.   
  
"It was..." Necessary, and Snape looks at him pointedly.  
  
"You don't..." Understand, but Snape does, and Harry is at a loss for words. He shakes his head, and decides he's reached his capacity. He says roughly, "I have to go soon." He expects a retort from Snape along the lines of, 'Oh yes, where to?' but none is forthcoming. Snape doesn't look surprised, and perhaps he is allowing Harry to stew in his own thoughts, and Harry knows he will, which is probably why Snape knows that he will. Harry quickly feeds the bread and half of the cheese to Snape (trying not to think of the warmth of Snape's mouth around his fingertips, the sucking sensation on the extremities of his body), and he quickly, wandlessly turns the other half of the cheese into a water-filled cup. He holds it up, so that Snape can drink, and as Snape's throat works the liquid down Harry has to look away, a hot, guilty shiver going down his spine. When Snape is finished, he makes a satisfied sounding noise, and Harry crushes the cup in his hand and leaves quickly, without a word.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
Once Harry is signed out, quickly and efficiently and with a note saying "Have-A-Nice-Day", he doesn't know where to go. His mind is buzzing with thoughts and feelings and he doesn't know what to do or say or think. He doesn't know if he should be feeling furious and distraught, like he was the day before when he left, or if he should be feeling understanding and pitying, or if he should be feeling angry and vengeful, or curious and unfinished, or lost and lonely, or betrayed, or a little turned on (a lot turned on, perhaps, with his fingers still damp), or torn and confused, so he decides to feel them all at once. It makes his head throb and his heart ache and his little toe chafe against the side of his shoe, and it makes him feel like he's going to implode and explode at the same time.  
  
He doesn't know where to apparate. He doesn't really have anywhere to go. He's free as a bird, he likes to think, he's not tied down at all. He can go wherever he chooses, and right now the possibilities are endless. So endless, in fact, that for a moment he's a little lost trying to narrow it down. He needs a drink, which is always a good way to start, and he can't be bothered trying to think of a muggle place where he can apparate and risk not getting seen, so he smiles weakly and murmurs to himself, "The Hog's Head it is, then," because the Three Broomsticks isn't even an option, what with the refurbished walls and loitering Hogwarts students. It feels like his childhood gone wrong when he steps in there, and he shudders to think what it would make him feel like now.  
  
He apparates to Hogsmeade, and his shoes sink into the soft mud on the ground, squelching despite the fine weather. Although, as Harry casts a gaze up into the heavens, the sky is starting to cloud over, and it doesn't look like it's going to stay nice for long.  _It never does_ , Harry thinks pessimistically, and slinks his way into the sleazy pub. Once he gets inside, where it's dark and dank and calm, Harry slips into the corner, signalling the bartender for his usual. Not that he's a regular or anything, oh no, he just doesn't like variety. So, on the few occasions he does come in here, he gets the same thing.   
  
When his Dragon's Lager is brought to him, he takes a deep gulp, thankful for the refreshment. He casts his eyes about the room, but it's difficult to see amidst the haze and gloom, and there's no one really in there except for him. There's a shape in the corner that could be a small person or shadows flickering on the wall, Harry can't tell, so he sighs and puts his head in his hands.  
  
He has a lot to think about. He doesn't like thinking, really, because you only need to think when something is wrong or there is a problem, and pure unadulterated happiness and calm is not thinking. He doesn't like solving problems, he doesn't like using logic, he doesn't like extending himself. Well, not anymore, anyway, and now he  _has_  to think, about a man who's loomed his shadow over Harry's life for far too long, and about a man who's been Harry's stand-in Godfather for years and who has, apparently, been keeping secrets from Harry.  
  
Well, secrets of omission, but that's all the same in a war. It's not a war now, but it still applies, Harry thinks fiercely. They see each other enough for Remus to have thought of mentioning it. Unless Snape is lying, which is certainly a possibility. What was it he said, something about having to appreciate the truth to lie? He probably knows about Harry's relationship with Remus, how he's Harry's only friend. He, of course, understands Harry's new…fascination with him blooming alongside his hatred, and one and one made two, of course, a two that could destroy Harry's mind, if he lets it.  
  
Harry signals the barman to keep them coming, and shakes his head softly. He's not going to let it, he's not going to think. He's not going to let Snape get to him. He's just going to be  _happy_ , damnit. He's going to be happy.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
"Hello?" Remus's voice sounds a million miles away.  
  
"Remus?" Harry's head is spinning a little, but at least the phone seems to be spinning with him, so he presses it close to his ear and says, "I wanna talk t'you about something."  
  
There is a pause. "Are you drunk, Harry?"  
  
Harry snorts, and a little dribble of saliva trails down his chin. "What does'it matter? I needa...I needa talk."  
  
There sounds like there is shouting in the background, but Harry can't tell. Maybe it's outside in the motel he's at, he doesn't know. It isn't really time for shouting, where he is. He spent the afternoon at the pub and he's not sure what time it is, now. It's time for ringing Remus, that's what time it is. "It's time for ringing you," He states, because really, it's time Remus did some talking.  
  
"I think perhaps you should lie down, Harry-" Remus sounds hesitant, and Harry cuts through.  
  
"Did you fuck Snape?"  
  
There is a long pause at the end of the line, and Harry wonders if maybe Remus fainted or something. Should he...should he ring an ambulance? But...but he's in England, and anyway, there's only one phone in the room. He presses his ear close, so close to the phone, and he can hear breathing.  
  
"I think we should discuss this-"  
  
"So you  _did_?"  
  
Remus breathes out harshly. "I wasn't expecting to have to-"  
  
But suddenly, despite Harry's intense longing to hear the end of the sentence, he can't, because his stomach roils and he doubles over, and spews out a sloppy mess all over the floor. A bit gets on his trousers, too, and some on the tip of his toe, and he wrinkles his nose. The phone slips from his fingers and falls into the mess, and he blinks and feels sick, despite having just vomited.  
  
"Harry?" the phone says faintly, and Harry calls,  
  
"I gotta go!"  
  
The phone doesn't reply, and Harry, satisfied, collapses on the bed, licking his lips with a wince. He moans, holding his stomach, and turns to his side. "I'm drunk," he states aloud, and giggles slightly to himself. He wants to add 'I'm happy,' too, but somehow, he can't quite form the words. They don't feel right in his mouth, his mouth with remnants of his alcohol abuse still in it, and he sighs, heavily.  
  
"I'm lonely," he mutters softly, and that fits, so he leaves it there, content to have it sit in his mouth as he falls asleep. It slowly envelops him, as his eyes start to close, and grabs a hold of his heart with cold fingers as he slips into a deep sleep. He dreams of walls, brick and stone and ash and wood, and of Snape, of Snape wrapping his acidic mouth around Harry's cock, of Remus howling as Snape pounds into him, of sex and of crying and of dead things and alive things. He wakes a few times, boiling and dirty, his body hot and flushed on the outside, sweat seeping out of every pore, running down his face and back, and settling in between his toes and in his tight underpants.   
  
His heart, though, is still cold.  
  
  



	4. Chapter 4

  
Sometimes in motels, the walls are thick. The air is humid and everything feels like it's pressing in on Harry, like he's stuck inside a giant apple pie and his insides are moistening and his outsides are crispening and there's a soft smell of contenment wafting through the air. Harry isn't sure if he likes those times very much. They're something he enjoys retrospectively, not while they're happening. And then there's the other times, like now, when the walls are almost paper thin, and every whisper, every intake of breath that a person in another unit makes can be heard perfectly. The ground shakes as they turn over, the whole room vibrates when the specks of dust in the air cause them to cough slightly. Most people hate this, but Harry doesn't.

Well, that's not true. Sometimes he hates it. Sometimes he just wants a night's peace, and he can't get it because the idiots in the next room have "lost the postcards, where the hell did you put them?" at one o'clock in the morning. Who the  _hell_ , Harry usually thinks angrily while punching his pillow, wants  _postcards_  in the middle of the night? Do we all just mindlessly follow our whims in the darkness? Harry sometimes considers avocados when he can't get to sleep, but that doesn't mean an invisible hand leads him to the supermarket, where he stands peering at the "closed" sign for hours in barely disguised shock. People should learn more self control.

But when he's not furiously plotting human obedience lessons, sometimes he likes to listen to everything that's going on. He likes hearing the conversations, the unpacking and the packing and the discussions and the arguments, and he likes picturing the people in his head and leaving the next morning, trying to glimpse to see if his guesses were correct. He likes having a little insight into people's lives, because they're never what you'd expect. They're always so surprisingly different, so mundane yet so  _uniquely_  mundane, that Harry can't help but listen, his mouth lying open on the soft pillow covers.

And it's not like it's perverted, or eaves-dropping, because if people didn't  _want_  to be heard, then they wouldn't talk so damn loudly. They're dying for someone to be listening. He didn't used to think that, he used to just blush crazily if he happened to hear someone's conversation, and think about apologising to them for the rest of the day. He used to feel guilty for catching snippets of secrets and tidbits of tales, until one day he started to realise that no matter how hard he tried to block out the world in all politeness, the world was  _extremely_  intent on busting back in.

He sighs, and turns over in his bed, the metal grinding and the posts clanging. There is a couple next door who aren't as fascinating as they first presented. They are, as far as Harry can tell, Indian, and while it was amusing for a while to listen to their unintelligible arguing, Harry has become tired. The fact that he's completely pissed isn't helping, because the world is spinning around faster than his stomach is, which is saying something, and he's getting tired of the jabbering circling around and around his head.  _If you're going to argue, at least let me know what you're arguing about,_  he thinks. He thinks about casting a translation spell, which would at least allow him some fun, but he supposes that crosses a moral line somewhere.

When Harry wakes up in the morning, a tremour of fear passes through his heart as a thick stench of vomit attacks his nostrils.  _I'm in Azkaban!_  he thinks, terrified, until he opens his eyes, and he's suddenly assaulted by a flowery pattern. He blinks, confused, and sits up. He's not in Azkaban, he notes with a sigh of relief, he's just in the same motel as he was the night before, tacky wallpaper and all. He leans over the side of the bed and wrinkles his nose. He had forgotten about the vomit. He's not sure how, now, because the smell is almost overpowering. He focuses intently on the drying spew and casts a wordless spell with a wave of his hand. The mess disappears, and Harry spends a while staring at the clean spot of carpet before he rouses himself up out of bed.

He stumbles into the bathroom and gazes at himself in the mirror, his reflection gazing back. He frowns as he notices the large circles under his eyes. When he was younger and he'd been having a hard time, he used to hate it when his face was fresh and his eyes wide because it didn't show  _anything_  about what was inside. Now he wishes he could look like he did then. He prods his face softly, staring at his red and puffy cheeks, his hollow eyes, and his gritty hair. He smiles garishly, and looks disappointedly at the yellowness of his teeth. He sighs, and then pokes his tongue out at his reflection, which promptly does the same.

"Insolent," he murmurs to it, and it grins.

He clambers into the shower, and curses once again as he remembers he's forgotten to buy shampoo. He makes a mental note to pop into a Muggle store (because ever since his hair shone "brighter than the sun, guaranteed!" he hasn't really trusted magical hair care products), and slowly tries to dissociate as he wraps a shaky hand around his rapidly-hardening cock. His legs, like his hands, are shaky, and so are his lips when they mutter past blush-stained cheeks, "F-fuck, S-snape..."

When he has come, and he's watched the remnants of his one-sided pleasure swirl down the drain, he feels a little empty. It becomes so easy to slip into the familiar suit of emptiness, he's starting to realise, because it fits him perfectly, squeezing snug around his fingertips and close about his heart. The emptiness fills up (Harry thinks, with a wry smile) every corner of his being, settling in his gut and in his lungs and at the corners of his mouth. It wraps around him, and strokes his back and tells him it'll never leave him, that he'll always be empty and that no one can change that, it sounds so similar to the whispered words of a lover in the darkness of the night that sometimes, Harry wonders if it  _is_  so terrible being empty. Empty of thought and emotion and pain.

But then another part of his brain protests and tells him that being empty is what makes him cry at night and makes him lonely during the day, what makes him both hate the people he meets, and be fascinated by them. What makes him feel angry and hollow and distraught, what makes him create fantasies in his mind.

And then he doesn't know what to believe, and he gets so sick of arguing with himself, because no side ever wins because they're so evenly matched and he hates thinking of having sides, of not being a whole person, like the war has split him up and messed him round and he has to try and stitch himself back together again.

He packs his suitcase slowly, placing every item in delicately as if they all had a designated space inside the velvet chaos of the interior, and leaves the motel promptly at a quarter to ten. He didn't notice when he was inside, but as soon as he steps out into the world, he realises it's raining. 

He doesn't know how he didn't notice, but he curses (as it were) as the little droplets form a team of millions pelting down from the sky to soak his clothing. He stops, when he reaches the street, and slowly sets down his suitcase. The empty feeling that had been sitting inside his stomach all morning has mutated, like it does sometimes when Harry isn't watching it closely. Now it's anger, and frustration, and sadness, and as he watches a man hastily putting an umbrella up and pulling in a woman close around him, sheltering her from the rain, he feels lonely too. He feels like he's a gaping hole, and as his heart pumps steadily to keep his body warm, he feels like it's slowly travelling up his throat. Like it's in his mouth, and it's prickling his eyes, and he's feels like there's a big empty space in his chest. He's forgotten how he felt in the morning, or the day before, and he thinks he may have started off the day in a good mood, but he can't remember. He can't remember where he thought he was going either, for a moment, as he stands there feeling lost in the rain. He's getting wet, but he doesn't see how it is all that preferable to being dry. He might get sick, but that doesn't seem as terrible as the world makes it out to be. He bites his lip and tries desperately not to feel pathetic, and as a bus passes and all the people in it gaze out at him with curious and pitying looks on his faces, he quickly picks up his suitcase, desperate not to  _look_ pathetic either. Because he  _isn't_  pathetic, you know. And he wants to turn around and scream to the people in the bus, "YOU'RE MORE PATHETIC THAN ME!" He wants to throw his suitcase down and smash all the windows and demand, "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH YOUR LIFE?" He knows it wouldn't be anything like he'd done. He'd saved the world, was what he did, and as much as he hated the hype and attention, and as much as he had to acknowledge he was part of an enormous team, working to support him in every way, sometimes he wants to walk around with a sign saying " _I saved your life, so what have you done with it?_ "

But he knows there's no point trying to make people thankful for their lives. Because then they have a shitty day, and they hate it, and on top of that they have the guilt of not feeling thankful for their shitty day, and wondering why they don't feel thankful, wondering why they're worse than everyone else, feeling ostracized for being ungrateful and evil. Harry gets annoyed, sometimes, but he didn't save the innocent from evil to make them feel evil themselves.

So he trudges along in the rain, feeling maudlin and confused and resentful, not quite sure where or who his feelings are directed at. When he gets to the supermarket, he leaves a trail of water behind him as he tromps up and down the aisles. The girl at the counter looks at him dubiously as his shoes squidge up, and she runs a critical eye over his hair when he presents the shampoo, and two packets of ready made pasta.

"Anything else?" she asks, boredly, and Harry stares at her.

"Oh, yeah, a whole trolley of stuff for a holiday I'm going on. I just left it behind me," he deadpans, and the girl cranes her neck to look behind him. She frowns when she sees nothing but the pyramid display of deodorant, and Harry raises an eyebrow at her. He feels quite proud of himself for keeping his fists clenched at his sides, rather than wrapped around her stringy neck.

She snaps her gum, and rolls her eyes. "Just asking, mister."

 _I SAVED YOUR FUCKING LIFE, YOU UNGRATEFUL BITCH!_  he wants to scream, but instead he smiles pleasantly, does the transaction efficiently, and leaves with the plastic bag grasped firmly in his hand and strong homicidal tendencies.

He used to think, some of those nights in the war when he smelled like blood and felt like shit, that once the war was over he'd never hate anyone again. That he'd be so worn out with the killing and the bloodshed and the anger and the prejudice and all of those other lovely human qualities that he'd just curl up with a book and a cup of tea indefinitely. He thinks back on the young man, rocking back and forth as the smell of burning flesh filled his nostrils, and imagines trying to explain to him why he feels such a great resentment of the human race, such sadistic tendencies, sometimes. He imagines Young Harry feeling sick, comparing his future self to Lucius Malfoy, who Harry knows used to bring himself off over the corpses of dead Muggles.

Harry sighs, and runs a wet hand through his soaking hand, and tells himself firmly it's just because he is  _old_  and  _tired_. He doesn't have tendencies towards necrophilia, he isn't bloodthirsty, and he hasn't been irreversibly fucked up by the war. He's just tired of everything that he has to put up with in life, and sometimes that comes out as frustration.

Harry smiles, because he likes that explanation much better.

He stops at the corner of the street, and takes a deep breath as he tries to decide where to go. People in cars go zooming past, faces pressing up against the glass as they peer out at the strange man standing in the rain. Harry tries not to watch them back, and he looks down at his shoes, standing in a puddle. He splashes it, and hundreds of droplets go cascading through the air, landing painfully on the muddy ground.

He considers treating himself. He doesn't really deserve anything, he knows, because he's indulged in far too much self-pity today, but he's cold and he's a little hungry and he tries to think of somewhere that won't have the potential for thousands of people to stare at him in barely disguised awe.

His mind suddenly clicks to the movie theatre, and he smiles slightly as he remembers the trashy love story he'd seen advertised. "That'll do," he murmurs to himself starts off in the direction of the cinema.

 

* * *

 

"Get a  _fucking_  hold of yourself," Harry hisses through clenched teeth. There is no one left in the toilets, now. He's alone in a cubicle, the strong scents of disinfectant and urine filling up his nose, as he rocks back and forth with tears in his eyes. He's furious at himself for allowing himself to get so  _distraught_  over a fucking  _movie_! He had thought that he would be fine. He even enjoyed it, in the beginning, with the sneaked looks and the sexual tension, and he'd enjoyed being able to run his eyes over the physique of fit men without disapproving looks from those around. He'd been enjoying the movie more and more and more, until suddenly he realised that he was hating every second of it, and ran out of the cinema, barging past a baffled cinema worker to lock himself in the bathroom.

He knows he shouldn't, and he knows he isn't even legally allowed to, but he grits his teeth and Apparates away, right into the rain on the docks. Let the damn workers search the building for any possible escape route, wondering how a distraught man entered the toilets and didn't come out, ever. Let them prod at the walls and examine the ceiling and scratch their heads and drive themselves barmy for the rest of their mad lives. At least it would give them a sense of  _purpose_.

 _I'd like a sense of purpose,_  Harry thinks bitterly. Goose bumps break out on his skin and he wraps his arms around himself. The sea is raging and frothing, and Harry glares at it resentfully. He's heard many stories and poems and long ranting raves about the sea from people. About how they love it because it's so big and beautiful and tumbling, and any problems that you have seem like trivialities compared to its glorious vastness, but Harry hates the sea. Look at it, so oblivious and indifferent. It may keep rolling when he's crying and when his world is falling down around him, showing him that things go on and there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but it keeps rolling when everything is good, too. It doesn't care when he's smiling and when he's happy. It makes his triumphs seem trivial, it makes the times when he feel glorious and on top of the world seem insignificant. It's just a big, freezing cold, roiling thing of nothingness, and Harry hates it because it's what he feels like sometimes. And sometimes he even wishes he could be like the sea, powerful and indifferent. 

He strides to an old seat, wooden and wearing away, and sits down, the rain battering his head. The wood of the seat digs into his backside, and he relishes feeling  _alive_. Not that he doesn't resent his life, and not that he doesn't sometimes plan elaborate ways to end it in his spare time, but with his chattering teeth and his aching arse and his numbed fingers and his jittery bones and his swiftly beating heart, he feels more alive than he has in a while. Focusing on every little sensation, blocking out everything that matters by bombarding his senses with minute details...he sucks in a deep breath.

He looks down at his watch. It says, simply, "Late." He stares at it, for a moment, wondering what it thinks it's telling him until he realises that it's late afternoon, and far too early to be considered an appropriate time for lunch.

"Shit," he mutters, and apparates away.

* * *

 

 

"You're  _late_!"

It is hissed. Harry feels guilty, then feels annoyed at feeling guilty. He's doing this as a  _favour_ , and Snape needs him, so Harry doesn't think he has any right to be so snarky.

"I hadn't realised there was a specified time," Harry says calmly, closing the cell door behind him. "I had some things to do."

Snape's face is etched with lines of fury. His teeth grind in between his speaking, and he looks at Harry with an expression of absolute disgust. "Spoken like a true selfish bastard-"

"I lost track of the time!" Harry protests. Which is true. His fault, he knows, and he'd apologise if it was anyone else. But it's Snape, and Harry has never apologised to Snape when he wasn't forced to. Snape's never seemed particularly deserving of an apology.

"Once." Snape arms shake a little, as if his body cannot contain his anger, and Harry notices that his cheeks are a little flushed, a look he has never seen on his former Professor. "That is how often I get fed a day, Potter. I  _get fed_ , like an  _animal_ , and I have to  _wait_  till fucking Saint Potter pulls his finger out of his arse long enough to-"

"I resent that!" Harry interrupts, blushing furiously at the figure of speech. God, what that makes him think of...he hastily scrapes the thought out of his mind, and spits, "My life doesn't revolve around  _you_ , Snape-"

"Oh?" Snape asks, like it does, and Harry resents  _that_ , too. "Well, who  _does_  it revolve around, Potter? Yourself? Your cock?"

Harry's stomach squirms a little, and his heart skips excitedly at hearing Snape utter such a filthy word. He wishes he could pull his heart right out of his chest and throw it at Snape, for all the attention it seems to be giving Snape lately, bloody unfaithful thing that it is. He silently scolds it for its lack of loyalty. Snape is intimating that Harry is  _selfish_ , utter  _bastard_. "I devoted," Harry begins, trying not to allow his voice to shake, "my whole childhood to-"

"Not this  _again_!" Snape snaps. His face is pale, and his eyelids flicker, and his voice is grating. His body looks weaker than usual, but Harry can't concentrate on his malnutrition. "We've heard this story time and time again, Potter, and always in the same tone, like you've decided you're the  _only one_  who's ever sacrificed anything for the war effort, and-"

Harry growls. "I didn't have any fucking  _choice_! Do you think I  _chose_  to walk around with Voldemort's mark on me?" Harry scoffs, "I certainly know people who did-"

"Don't you  _dare_ ," Snape hisses, and then sways slightly, his eyes falling closed. His tongue flicks out to lick his lips, still cracked and splitting, before his eyes spring open again with renewed determination, "speak to me about things you don't understand."

Doesn't understand. Snape thinks he doesn't understand...who does Snape think he is? Who does Snape thinks  _Harry_  is? "What, that you were bullied a few times by some kids who were cooler than you?" Harry says, particularly nastily. "So you turned to murder and rape and-"

"YOU-" Snape's voice is almost completely hoarse, and his eyes are wide with fury greater than Harry has ever seen.

"-KNOW!" Harry retorts, loudly. He  _does_  know. "I know what it's like to be bullied, but I didn't run off to join a mass-murder cult, did I?"

Snape goes to snap back, but all that comes out of his mouth is a hissing whine. He snaps his mouth shut, furious, and glares at Harry, who sighs angrily and pulls the bottle of water out of his bag and settles down in front of Snape. The older man opens his mouth, dutifully, his eyes still flashing. Harry notes with particular satisfaction that it grates on Snape's nerves having to rely on Harry's help to Harry in the middle of a particularly heated argument.  _One point to me, for free_ , Harry thinks, and quickly pulls off the seal and squirts the water into Snape's mouth. Snape drinks it down greedily, his eyes staring into Harry's with flickers of innuendo, and Harry's mouth goes dry, and his pants suddenly feel tighter than they did this morning. Snape is trying to even the score, and Harry stares at Snape, pulling back, his mouth open a little, his breath clearly audible.

"You haven't ever made a mistake, Potter?" Snape says, softly and darkly, continuing on the conversation as if the interlude had never happened. "Would you like to be held accountable for things you did in your youth thirty years on?" His eyes are narrowed slightly, and he flexes his long fingers.

Harry shakes his head softly, and he would have been amazed at Snape if he didn't know him so well by now. "You were old enough to know what you were doing," he mutters, looking up somewhere above Snape's head.

"At seventeen?" Snape murmurs back. "You had a group of some of the most talented witches and wizards in Britain helping you when you were seventeen, and you  _still_  managed to royally fuck up-"

"I killed him, didn't I?" Harry snaps, he eyes returning to Snape's. Then he sighs, and runs a hand through his hair. It sticks a little to his fingers, but he hardly registers this. "That's all that matters." He says it a little to himself as well, and he grimaces as he realises Snape notices this. 

"So you clearly keep telling yourself," the older man says, running a critical eye over Harry. "What do you live for, Potter?" Snape asks, and it seems so out of the blue that Harry laughs, uncomfortable.

"I don't really see what that has to do with anything..." Besides the fact that it's none of Snape's damn business, and that Harry has no idea himself. "Aren't you hungry, or something?" he asks, trying to change the subject. One of his legs twinges, and he shifts slightly.

"Baiting you is...for the moment, more enjoyable." Snape smirks a little, and Harry only has a moment to allow his mouth to fall open most inelegantly before Snape continues, "Are you a virgin, Mr Potter?"

"What?" Harry starts. "I don't see," he says, feeling his face heat up, "what  _that_  has to do with-"

"It's merely conversation. I thought we'd explore a...mutual interest." Snape is almost smiling, and Harry stares at him with shock.

Snape is toying with him.  _Snape is toying with me_. "You're toying with me."

Snape shrugs, as if innocent and only mildly interested, and Harry hates that he's so bloody  _good_  at this. "You're not interested in sex?" Snape asks, casually, and hearing Snape say  _sex_  in that voice sends shivers down Harry's spine, and he hates it. He wishes he could act more like an adult, too, but all he seems to be able to do at the moment is blush and stammer.

"W-what...I don't think that-"

"You're gay, are you not?" Snape interrupts, and Harry freezes. "So you're familiar with sex between two males?"

"I don't want to discuss this with you!" Harry snaps, sweating in odd places. For a moment, he wonders why his first reaction wasn't  _"I'm not gay!"_ , but Harry has no time to think, because Snape is continuing, as if Harry hasn't said a word. 

"You're reasonably experienced, I would presume, because you're by no means unattractive-"

"I-" Harry begins, and then he blinks.  _...by no means unattractive..._ "What?" he says dumbly, and his heart starts to beat inside his mouth.

"Unless," Snape says, scrutinising Harry closely, "the demons" (he says, dryly) "of your past have prevented you from getting too close to anyone..."

Harry's hands twitch, and he has to forcefully concentrate on stopping them from clapping to his head. He  _knows_  Snape isn't in there, and he isn't sure now if that's a good thing, because it means he's so bloody transparent that even a half-starved, half-crazed criminal can see right through him.

"Either that," Snape continues, almost boredly, "or you're not ready to accept the sexual truths about yourself." 

Harry feels like a balloon slowly being filled up with more and more air, seconds from popping. "Can we - just - stop?" he says through gritted teeth, trying to ignore Snape's smug expression. "I don't know what you want from me-"

Snape smirks. "Oh yes, let's go down that path. What do I want from Potter-"

" _Look_ ," Harry begins, feeling like he's blushing so much that his face is on fire, "what - are you doing? Are you - are you flirting? With me?" The idea is so ridiculous Harry regrets it as soon as it leaves his mouth. "I don't - I don't understand. So - so. I'm just...just going to...I don't  _understand_  you," Harry repeats, frustratedly. "Is - is that what you're trying to do? To confuse me?"

Snape rolls his eyes. "I'm trying to distract myself from the fact that I'm starving, Potter, and this method has, thus far, proved fruitful."

Harry opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. Snape's face is completely unreadable, as is his posture, unable to change to reflect emotion. Harry feels completely like he's a one-way road, with Snape's traffic flooding into him, whereas he's completely cut off from the other man. Harry has no idea what Snape is thinking or feeling or doing, but with just a few words Snape has wriggled his way into Harry's subconscious, his mind and his...he doesn't want to think about where else Snape has wriggled, and he most certainly doesn't want to think about where he's  _wished_  that Snape has wriggled in the man's presence. The thought makes him hot, and he immediately scolds himself.  _No!_  Just a phase. It's just a phase. Something his brain has come up with to torture him. It'll get sick of it, eventually, and move onto something else. Harry thinks that the nightmares may even be preferable to this.

Harry gives a long sigh, suddenly tired. "If you were hungry, you could have just said," he says.

"I thought it was rather clearly implied," Snape replies, and Harry feels stupid.

"Right." Harry sits down slowly in front of the other man. "This is confusing," he mutters under his breath. He knows he should be keeping his turmoil inside, but every time he comes near Snape, all of his thoughts in his head get all jumbled up with each other, and he doesn't know his left from his right from his wrong.

"This?" Snape repeats, and the corner of Harry's mouth quirks, despite himself. 

"You," he affirms, and Snape cocks his head slightly. 

"Me." It's as if Snape is trying it on his lips, to see how it feels. "You seem to be reading quite a bit into me, Potter. I could be less complicated than you think."

Harry nods slowly. "You could be," he says, then he shakes his head. "But that's too much for me to think about at the moment." He's thought about it a lot.

"But surely, you're going to return to your home and torment yourself over it?"

Harry nods again, smiling a little. "Yeah, probably." Harry is aware that they might be sharing a joke, and he doesn't know what he thinks about it. He's a little worried, because Snape isn't snarling and frothing and screaming, and he's stopped messing with Harry (he hopes), and Harry feels like he doesn't really know this person who is chained up opposite him for the moment.

"I brought pasta today," he says, pulling it out of the plastic bag. "Cheap packet stuff, but it's good." He's had it a few times before.

Snape frowns. "Packet stuff?" he sneers. "Didn't you at least learn rudimentary cooking skills as a student of mine for five years?" 

 _Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble..._  Harry tries not to smile.

"Yeah, but I was running late. And this stuff is good. It's got little bits of prosciuitto in it...oh." A thought suddenly occurs to Harry. "You're not a vegetarian, are you?"

Snape stares at Harry, like he can't decide whether to be furious or amused. "Do I look the type?" he asks, the corner of his mouth twitching and his eyes shooting daggers.

"Well, you might have - since the..." Harry suddenly feels silly. What a completely idiotic thing to have said. He'd seen Snape eat meat a million times in the Great Hall. "That was a stupid thing to ask," he murmurs.

Snape smirks. "I have him insulting  _himself_  now," he says dryly, and Harry is just about to laugh and say  _"Shut up,"_  before he remembers who he's talking to. He looks up at Snape, and runs his eyes quickly over the other man's face, before he continues to unpack the two little packets of pasta, kept warm by heating charms. The two stay silent while Harry slowly prepares their mediocre lunch, and Snape's breathing is loud and harsh, which causes an...odd feeling in Harry's stomach. It wouldn't, usually, but Snape's breathing at the present time is a little too much like Harry's breathing after he's just had a really good orgasm, and hearing Snape imitating this in such close proximity is...

Harry shakes he head. He can't allow himself to admit that being in Snape's presence sexually arouses him. It's absolutely ridiculous.  _And untrue_ , a little voice in Harry's head murmurs, and Harry is worried because it sounds like a liar.

Harry swallows thickly, and feels a little queasy. He certainly doesn't want to think about what  _feeding_  Snape does to him. Watching his slick tongue wrap around every morsel of food, watching his throat work it down, watching his dark eyes glimmering in satisfaction...

"STOP!" Harry calls aloud, and Snape raises an eyebrow, and asks,

"Why? Is it poisoned?" He asks it like it's not an unrealistic question. "That's not about to stop me..." he says, and continues eating calmly.

"No, no, I just..." Harry sighs, and stares miserably at Snape's thin lips. "I have to go. I'm late." He can't stand tormenting himself in Snape's presence. And anyway, if he stays any longer, Snape might be able to see exactly in which way he torments Harry, and Harry doesn't want that. He knows that Snape has some idea of what Harry thinks of him, after having been right in the midst of it all in Harry's head, but he doesn't think Snape needs further physical proof of Harry's current...disability. 

Snape makes a soft noise, and looks up at Harry. "That," he says thickly, before swallowing his food, "seems to be becoming something of a habit with you."

Harry nods frantically. "Yes, well, I - I still am. Late. So...so eat up. Quick."

Snape raises an eyebrow. "Eat up, or stop?"

Harry blushes. "Eat. Er, please." He's  _asking_  Snape to eat. How ridiculous the other man must think he is.

Snape seems a little amused by this display too, and he says dryly, "If you insist."

Harry shovels the rest of the food into Snape's mouth, and after letting Snape drink once more, and after wiping his lips (his eyes focusing firmly on the wall behind Snape's head) Harry leaves, once again quickly and quietly, his mind in complete disorder and his heart rocking around like an angry, trapped child. His wonders vaguely, amidst the chaos of his thoughts, why the meal is always the climax of the visit, and if maybe they got that done at the beginning it might change things. His other thoughts float away as he ponders this, and decides maybe he might try it tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

Harry stays in a wizard establishment on the outskirts of the city that night. It's nice to be able to perform spells and to have charmed objects about the house, but he has less than ten minutes to hold his head in his hands and gasp before the fireplace roars and Remus's voice asks,

"Harry? Are you there?"

Harry springs up and hastily wipes his damp eyes, startled. "What the hell, Remus, how did you find me?" How could Remus have known where he was staying? He stumbles over to the fireplace, where Remus's smiling face is blinking out amidst the flames.

"Were you hiding?" he asks, sounding amused, and Harry drops to his knees in front of the fire and shakes his head. 

"No, not necessarily," he murmurs, and hopes that Remus can't tell that he's upset. He runs a hand through his hair and wipes away a small trail of mucus on his face, and Remus frowns.

"Are you all right, Harry?" he asks with a concerned look on his face, and Harry frowns as he wishes that Remus wasn't so damn perceptive all of the time. 

"I'm fine," he says, plainly.

"Better than last night?" the older man asks wryly, and Harry laughs, embarrassed.

"Yeah, better."

"That's good." Remus says this like he isn't going to mention anything they talked about the previous night. Harry supposes it's a sensitive matter, and he's glad. He was going to apologise, but it looks like Remus isn't interested in pursuing the matter. "Well, I really just flooed to check up on things, to make sure you're not rolling around in your own spew..."

Harry laughs. "No, no, I got that cleaned up."

Remus smiles. "That's good, then."

Harry nods. "How are things with you?" He wishes he could see Remus's face better.

Remus looks surprised at the question, like it's completely unexpected, then answers stiltedly, "Er - fine."

Harry peers at Remus, a little curious. "Everything going okay?" he asks.

"Well - I mean, yes. Yes, everything's fine. Look," Remus quickly changes the topic, and Harry most definitely isn't fooled, "I'd like to ask you for a favour. To do something for me, really."

"Sure," Harry says, despite his suspicion, "what is it?" He still feels a little bad for the previous night.

"Ha," Remus says weakly, "you're quick to agree. Perhaps you mightn't be so keen when I ask."

Harry frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I want you to - that is to say, it's necessary to - I'd like you to...this pertains to Snape, by the way," Remus says, watching Harry closely, and Harry's shoulders sag as his heart speeds up.

"What," he says guardedly.

"I...I'd like you to give him a bath."

Harry blinks a few times, and lets the phrase run around in his head for a bit, to make sure that he's made correct sense of it. "Excuse me?" he says finally, when he's sure he must have heard it wrongly.

"Well, living in such conditions -"

Harry laughs incredulously, his eyes wide. "You're kidding, right?"

Remus looks a little perplexed. "Well...no."

Harry shakes his head. He wonders if maybe Remus has had one too many to drink, or if maybe  _he_  has, and just can't remember it. Maybe he's dreaming. "I can just use a cleaning charm if you think he's getting too smelly-"

"You know those don't work well on humans," Remus interrupts. "They're bad for the skin-"

"Remus, this is  _Snape_ ," Harry says exasperatedly, trying not to imagine how that would sound coming out of anyone else's mouth.

"I'd like it if you didn't refer to Snape as if he is a lesser being, Harry."

There is a pause, and Harry shifts. "Well, he  _is_ , isn't he? He's a criminal-"

"Look," Remus interrupts, tersely, "all I'm asking is for you to just give him a quick wipe down-"

"No!" Harry protests, scandalised, his face starting to heat up. "How bloody weird would that be?" He's trying not to think of stripping Snape down, lathering up a sponge..."No!" he repeats.

"It's not as if I'm asking you to...to..." Remus blushes, and Harry gets the implication immediately, and splutters,

"Well, I should bloody well...Remus, this is  _Snape_." 

"I'm aware of that," Remus sighs.

Harry frowns and shifts again uncomfortably. "What if...what if he got...like, an...erection, or something? How bloody uncomfortable would I feel then?" Oh God. What if Snape got an erection? With Harry there. Naked and hard and tied up...Harry gasps, and shakes his head. So  _disgusting_.

Remus looks at Harry as if the thought never occurred to him. "Oh," he says softly, as it ticks over in his mind. "Yes, I could imagine that would be..." he trails off, scrutinising Harry carefully.

"No." Harry is definite. He couldn't imagine having to cope with that situation and keep anything resembling his sanity. He imagines proposing this to Snape, and snorts. "Snape wouldn't let me, anyway."

"He might. It's not a nice feeling being filthy, Harry-"

"No," Harry repeats, "I won't. I can't. I refuse." He feels a little guilty, but... "Sorry, Remus, but...not even for you. You can do it when you get back, if you want. He'd probably prefer that, anyway." Harry feels a little confused when a fleeting feeling of something akin to jealousy goes through him, and he shakes his head.

Remus looks a little uncomfortable, and ignores Harry's last remark. "I might not be back for longer than I thought." 

Harry frowns. "Why's that? I thought it was all set out." 

Remus sighs, and little flickers of embers come shooting out his mouth. "There have been some - unforseen circumstances." He's not telling Harry something  _again_ , and Harry sighs angrily.

"Like what?" he presses.

Remus swallows flames. "Oh, just - a few hiccups. With - organisation."

Harry looks at Remus carefully. It's hard to make out his face amidst the flames and the wood and the ash and the embers, but Harry can swear that Remus is lying, although that doesn't really make any sense. What would Remus be lying about?  _Why_  is probably a better question, but the way Remus is clearing his throat makes Harry hesitate to pose the question.

"Well, I should be off," Remus says suddenly, and Harry is even more suspicious, "I'll contact you again some time."

Harry shakes his head. "How will you be able to find me?" he asks, carefully.

Remus chuckles. "The floo operator, Harry. How long have you been a wizard for?"

Harry is too busy trying to figure Remus out to feel silly. "Oh, right," he says distractedly.

"Goodbye, Harry," Remus says, and his face disappears from the fire, not giving Harry a moment more. Harry sits there for a while, his mind turning over.

"Bye," he murmurs belatedly to the remaining flickers of light, and leans back, thinking.

 

* * *

Harry has always liked to think that he has a firm grip on reality, with enough open-mindedness to take into account the unknown and fantasy. Rather like he's in a little row boat, with one hand gripping tightly to the stable and definite form of the oar, and the other hand trailing in the misty mysterious waters of the sea. He likes to think that he is versatile, flexible. 

He shakes his head, and takes a large gulp out of the bottle of amber liquid, wincing as it burns its way down his throat. Now he feels like the rough waters of the make-believe have upturned his little boat of life, and the oar has gone sailing off into the distance. He's trying to keep afloat in the waters, but he doesn't know what they are or what they hold, and suddenly the freezing water feels more real than the oar in his fist ever did. But the whole point of him existing in his boat was to keep out of the water, and now that he's  _in_  it, he feels lost.

But then, he thinks as he lolls his head off one side of the chair, it's not  _really_  as if he's  _in_  anything. He's not really a part of anything, really. He's not involved in anyone's life, really, save as a fill-in. A fill-in food-bearer for Snape, who couldn't care less if he lived or died, and a fill-in friend for Remus, who spends his time lying to Harry. He doesn't have a home, he doesn't really have any friends, he doesn't have commitments, he hardly even has a job. He can't even remember the last time he went.

Mostly, he just spends his time lying around feeling sorry for himself. "Poor Harry," he murmurs in a silly voice, then feels equally depressed and amused. He stands up quickly, and feels the world lurch to the side and his stomach do a few somersaults to entertain itself. He knows he'll probably end up throwing up again. He supposes that he's almost bulimic, really, and that the rate at which he's losing weight is probably due to how many times he throws up everything he's consumed. He's heard about a shifty business that sells a potion to prevent your body from throwing up when you're drunk, but reports of people dying because of alcohol poisoning have been high, especially for wizards. Muggles do the same thing with drugs, he's heard, and he wonders why with all the possibilities at the wizarding world's fingertips, they still manage to throw everything away like every muggle Tom, Dick and...

"Harry," he murmurs, and isn't sure if it's funny or not. 

 _He_  isn't throwing everything away.

He could, though, he muses. He could. Some people might be sad, but then, Harry wouldn't care, would he? If he was just floating in the river. He could do it, it wouldn't be that hard, really. It might be nice, peace and quiet and calm for eternity. Maybe some people would smirk and say, "I told you so." Harry can think of at least one, a man sitting in an old cell in the wizarding world's most famous prison, who would do that. Snape would drawl on at length about Harry's weakness of character, about his lack of determination, about how "Potter always thought he was better than everybody else. Oh no, Saint Potter isn't going to suffer what we all suffer day in and day out..."

Harry growls. He'll show him. He'll show them all. The bottle slips from Harry's hand, and shatters on the ground. He stares at it in shock, and gingerly steps back from the shards of broken glass.

But then, he supposes, he'd be living  _for_  Snape. He'd be continuing on his life  _because_  of Snape. He wouldn't be dead due to Snape, which would be like the other man saving his life, without even lifting a finger. Harry doesn't want to be living because of Snape, he doesn't want to owe something to Snape, and he doesn't want his purpose to be  _Snape_. Then it would be like...Harry doesn't even know what it would be like. He's only ever lived because he  _had_  to live. When he was younger, he wasn't allowed to die. He was forbidden to die. He imagines his past self strapped to a chair, a big sign above his head, "No Running. No Smoking. No Magic in The Corridors. And Absolutely No Dying."

He laughs, until he realises he's allowed to die now, if he wants to. He supposes that now he's just like everyone else, all with divine permission. "I have permission," he murmurs to the empty room, and it's like the room whispers back, "But what else do you have, Harry?"

Harry shakes his head back and forth, and slumps into his chair. "Nothing."

He thinks of the barman. "What will it be today?" It's never, "Nothing." There's always something that Harry wants when he goes in, and there's always something that he gets, and there's always something that he has. Why does life have to be a stage? Why does life have to be a box of chocolates? Why can't it be an enormous bar?

Harry snorts. "My life doesn't make sense," he murmurs, and it's true. 

It doesn't.

 


End file.
